High Gear
by Sterling Lee
Summary: Team Galactic is a new kind of threat to the Sinnoh region. When they invade Eterna City, the employees of Rad Rickshaw's Cycle Shop take it personally. Against their better judgement, they pin their hopes on a cripplingly shy trainer, a half-baked plan, and a serious case of don't-know-when-they're-beat to challenge Commander Jupiter and take the city back.
1. Freewheeling

Author's Note: _High Gear_ is the single longest writing project I've ever taken on (though I know it pales in comparison to a lot of other chapter fics). It's been an idea for probably almost two years now, constantly changing and growing new bits and just...stewing. It's an OC trainer fic, approached from what I hope is an original direction, and I'm super proud to finally be able to share it. So here, have two chapters to be starting off with, and enjoy!

* * *

_Do you know who all the best stories are about? You're a big boy, go ahead and say. That's right; they're about heroes. _

_Heroes are not like everyone else. They begin as men and go on and on as legends. They can do anything._

_Get down the book from the middle shelf. Yes, the biggest one, with the pictures you liked to look at even before you could read. All the legends are here._

_Open it. See the names of the heroes and their companions. Do you have a favorite? I have two. That's not cheating, really, because they go together. They were brothers, but they had a terrible fight. It's a sad story. I don't know why I like it, but I do. Your father liked it too—he loved—_

_That's very sweet, but I'm not crying, really. It's all right. It's all right. I just get tired sometimes. Here—take the book._

_Find us a happier story. Choose any you like. I'll let you read this time, and we'll see how well you've learned your words._

_Be careful when you turn the pages—you remember. This book is very old._

_So you've found your story. A story of the greatest ones, I see. They are the ones whose names we do not speak. They live out of time. They are like nothing we can imagine; lords over thought and will and all the world's waters. They don't like humans, but heroes are not like everyone else. _

_There were heroes who made friends with them, and they traveled together. They protected the people who could not protect themselves._

_No, I've never seen one of the greatest ones. No, or any heroes. But don't worry, one day you might. Things go on. I'm sure that they walk in the world still._

* * *

Summer rolled around and settled in to stay in the city of the past and present. Sun chased the spring fogs up into the mountains to the north, and Eterna City reveled in the light.

Seasons never lay heavy on the brownstone city. It was worn smooth by the passing of time, and slipped easily through the years. It was cushioned by tradition and muffled by contentment, not racing forward but looking back, and back, and back. Innovation was for the big cities. Changes came and went. Eterna City _stayed_.

Just off the main drag, some ways back from the cobbled road, stood Rad Rickshaw's Cycle Shop. It was sheltered by a cheerful green awning, and stood in the shadow of two large beech trees. There was a gravel lot in front, where Skip Markham was examining a blue road bike. A lean boy with scabs on his knees and dirt on his hands, he took hold of it and squatted on the gravel. "Looks like that nail went all the way through," he said. "You'll need a new inner tube to go with that tire change. Let me just take this around back."

He nodded to the bike's owner as he straightened up. "We can have this ready by about one o'clock, ma'am, and you can pick it up any time before we close at six." He took down her name and phone number and wheeled the bike down to the shop.

Going around to the side entrance, he rapped on the frame of the open door. "Hey, Angela, we got another one. Flat back tire, better have a look at the front too."

"Right, yeah," she replied distractedly, "Yeah, okay. Just leave it by the bench." Angela was a small woman with dark, alert eyes, her sleeves rolled up over tanned forearms. Intent on her work, she didn't put down the pliers and the length of brake line she was holding until Skip had crossed the room, abandoned the bike, and stood peering into the showroom beyond.

"Hey. Hey, Skip, is Tony here yet?"

Skip straightened his ball cap and shrugged. "Haven't seen him. I thought he, like, called in sick or something."

"I don't think he's capable of thinking that far ahead. Anyway, I need another hand on repairs. If it's not him it's gonna be you, so go find out."

Skip was the shop's youngest employee, and as he walked out he gave in to the tendency of all teenage boys to bounce up and whack the lintel in passing. "Jeez, Angela. You're a slave driver."

Coming into the showroom, he promptly had to sidestep as a Clefairy ran past chasing a wad of paper. He came up to the counter, but just as he opened his mouth to speak to the man behind the register, the phone rang.

"Rad Rickshaw's Cycle Shop, how may I help you?" the man gestured vaguely at Skip, mouthed _just a moment_. "Yes, that's right. We're open until six tonight. Sorry, we don't do leases, but we do have a daily rental program."

Skip leaned against the counter and watched the Clefairy pounce on her makeshift toy. She batted it back and forth, dropping to all fours to chase it when it skittered out of range. A careless tap sent the paper skidding into the path of the air conditioner, and the current of colder air caught it and sent it spiraling away. The Clefairy reached and missed, stopped to watch in confusion as the vent sent her toy out of reach.

The man at the counter put down the phone. "What is it, Skip?"

Rad Rickshaw was well into his fifties; a large man, self-made, satisfied. His business had been putting steadily along for some fifteen years, oblivious to changing times and fickle economic forecasts. He had been a cyclist and was now an enabler of cyclists, those curious and devoted disciples of aerodynamics and the bike's smooth circular glide.

"Just wanted to know if Tony called in, boss. Angela's on the hunt."

Rickshaw grinned and shook his head. "I haven't heard from him, but you know how he is. He'll probably turn up just as soon as we give up waiting on him." He leaned down over the counter and stretched out a hand to the Clefairy. "Triumph, come on over here, girl. You're going to knock something over running around like that."

The pink Pokémon chirruped and went behind the counter. She reappeared moments later climbing up to settle beside the register. Rickshaw smoothed her fur and tickled her ears.

"We can't have you bumming around like you're at school, Skip," Angela called from the repair room. "If Tony's not coming, get in here and help me with the bikes."

Skip was ready with a retort, but he was cut off as the door swung open, bell jingling merrily. A young man sauntered in grinning, jeans wet to the knees and dark hair disheveled. He bowed theatrically at the counter. "Morning, all. Sorry I'm late, I can explain this time."

"Just let me get a pen and paper," Angela said dryly as she leaned back from her worktable and looked into the showroom. "Whatever the story is this time, you could probably sell it to a magazine."

Tony rolled his eyes. "I thought you had more faith in me. I'll market it as a thriller and make millions, you'll see."

"_Mr. Andrade_," Rickshaw began, shooting Tony a look. "At least pretend we're on the clock here."

"We're never on the clock, boss. We're nothing but freewheeling, remember?"

"Right, right. Just let's hear your excuse."

Tony shrugged. "Not much to it. Some girl got roughed up by a bunch of thugs. I didn't see it, but she said they looked like a cult or something. They threw her stuff in the fountain at Eon Square. Hence," he gestured at his dripping legs, "My partially sodden state."

"Playing hero, eh?" Rickshaw grunted, not unkindly. "All right, then. Get in the back. You better make up for this by bowing to Angela's every whim, got it?"

Tony threw a mock salute. "Your wish is my command."

Some time later, Skip rested his elbows on the counter and dropped his chin into his hands. Moments passed, and he blew a strand of hair out of his eyes. If he concentrated, he could hear Angela and Tony's bickering filtering in from the next room, peppered with laughs and playful insults. He leaned to the side, balanced his chin on one fist. The other hand tapped aimless rhythms on the counter. He stood braced for a minute, pulled one leg up and hooked it around the other. He wobbled. He straightened. He sighed.

Rickshaw had vanished into the office, leaving the register to him. No matter how many times he cast restless glances around the showroom, through the shop front and into the street, something interesting refused to happen.

The same could be said for the whole of the city, in fact. Eterna was only drowsily urban, with none of the bustle of the cities to the south. It was content to roll over in the summer warmth. Skip was bored out of his mind.

* * *

A boy walked a path in the blinding sun. He was thin and smudged, he moved as if he expected to trip and fall at any moment. His steps sent up clouds of dust. Nothing stirred in the flatlands that he passed through. They were draped in the still blank exhaustion of weeks without rain.

There was a map in his hand, and as he came to a fork in the path he paused to consult it. "I thought so," he muttered to the empty air. "I _thought_ so. You use a map that's, what, four years out of date, and of course you're going to end up on a road that shouldn't exist."

The boy turned at random and took the left fork, just as parched and barren as the road he had been following. "Bet the big shots never had this trouble. All their problems were _important _problems. They never had a stupid map that only shows half the roads. They didn't," here he managed a tired grin, "fall in ditches."

He thought longingly of mountain peaks and mirror lakes; of his favorite story-beast, Suicune. He remembered the pictures he had looked at when he was younger, turning the pages with solemn reverence. Its breath must be like the air off snowmelt streams, he imagined. Its eyes brilliant like the spume of the sea.

Yanking off his hat, he wiped his forehead with it and stuffed it in his pocket. He hissed as the sun hit his eyes afresh. He had undone but not removed his scarf, and his upturned collar was limp with sweat. The path stretched on and on into seeming nowhere; dry scrub and empty fields. "Valley Windworks was at least green, almost wish I hadn't left in such a—"

He stumbled on a dip in the path and just caught himself, throwing out his arms for balance, suspended for an instant in the panic of freefall. "No," he shook his head. "Careful. No, that's not right."

His voice was thin in the expanding space. An unreal silence billowed and grew vast as his words faded back to nothing. Heat lay on the world and sapped its strength. As he peered into the distance, the air shimmered before him.

He thought of what had happened at the power plant, shook his head briskly as if to disentangle himself from the memory. "Better not get to thinking like that. The valley's back a ways, I'm going on."

* * *

Angela hoisted an orange bike onto her work table and prodded the tangle of cloth jammed in the gears. "I swear. Tourists do this on purpose to drive me nuts. They're out to murder our rental fleet."

"It's not just tourists," Tony shot back. "The whole region is part of a conspiracy to drive you insane with our stupidity."

"I knew it. Are you the ringleader, then?"

"Ah, but that would be telling." Stripping the rubber tubing from a length of brake line, he tossed it in the trash and dropped the wire inside into a box of scrap metal. "And where's the fun in that?"

Triumph tugged at his pant leg, and he smiled, wiping his oily hands on a rag before leaning down to pet her. "Silly, you know you're not supposed to be in here. Go bug the boss, I bet he misses you."

"Focus, Tony. Lot of in-and-out today, since the weather's getting nice. Can't afford to waste time." Angela teased a strip of cloth from between two segments of the chain, frowning in concentration. Triumph left Tony and approached her, trilled happily and pawed her ankle. She smiled in spite of herself. "Get out of here, you."

Skip handed over change, a receipt, said something along the lines of have-a-nice-day-sir-won't-you-please-come-back-again. He barely noticed as the customer went out. He was watching the people in the street.

There were ten of them, all trainers with Poké Balls displayed on their belts. They had matching blue bobs and futuristic outfits, slick and strange. One man walked at the head of the group, the others gathered in loose formation behind him. They paid no attention to the Eternans who gaped as they passed; this absurd cavalcade of so-serious henchmen.

"You guys," Skip called absently. "You guys, come check this out."

Tony appeared almost immediately, looking far more interested in the strange passers-by than in his repair work. "Weird. You think they're street performers or something? Performance art finally finding its way up here?"

"Dunno, but seriously, that _hair_. Maybe it's a movie shoot and we didn't hear about it."

"We'd see cameras or tape or something. A trailer, maybe. Directors." Tony ran a hand through his hair and peered at the spacemen. "Huh. They look kinda nasty. Just scowling, all of them."

Angela entered the room and leaned on the counter, hand on her hip. "Chop-chop, Tony. What are you doing?"

Skip pointed. Angela looked. She said nothing for a few moments, but her eyebrows steadily ascended until Tony and Skip both winced, recognizing the look of utter scorn.

"Their mothers must be proud. If they're not actors they should probably all be arrested for public idiocy. Do they think they're blasting off into space or something?"

Tony snickered. "Harsh. And you know the police don't actually arrest people, right? They just lose Pokémon battles."

"Oh, I'm harsh? I bet you can get in some pretty deep trouble for telling the truth about Sinnoh police."

Skip craned his neck to watch the group pass on by as his colleagues descended into bickering once again. He was no trainer, but born and raised in a waypoint town—he knew what they looked like. He was used to seeing the usual hardened veterans, rich amateurs, young hopefuls. Eterna was a vital supply point on any trainer's journey, but it had never played host to trainers like these.

"Tempting as it is, we can't waste our day making fun of them." Angela said abruptly, and jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the empty repair room. "Get back in there, Tony."

She followed him back to their work; at times it was necessary to keep him on task. Tony wasn't lazy—his considerable energy was just aimed in what she felt was the wrong direction. He liked to build things, not all of them bikes, and his mind had a habit of wandering, exploring new places, and bringing back souvenirs that didn't go with anybody's furniture.

At a more stringent business than Rad Rickshaw's, this would have been a problem. Angela had worked there for nine years, though, and she knew how the cogs turned. The shop coasted on spit, duct tape, and dedication. Now, its employees settled into their work, and did not notice the day pass.


	2. Shift Gears

The boy on the dry road walked on, even as the path narrowed before him. Soon enough it became nothing but a cart track, and he walked on the raised part between the ruts. He had long since stopped talking aloud.

Instead, he kept up a commentary in his head, trying to encourage himself by thinking about the village that surely waited for him in the lowlands. It would have quiet streets and proper shops and a fountain in town square. People would smile and nod at him as he passed. No one would be looking for trouble.

As he went on the waste lands drew back and away. He found himself among stands of scrawny trees, and the grass was longer underfoot. The trees cast brief shadows over him as he walked. The land was dipping down, not quite a valley but low, and cool, and green.

Finally, the boy sat down beside a copse of trees no thicker than his own wrists. He put his bag down and stuffed his scarf inside, and after a few moments' rummaging found water. He drank greedily, and wiped his chin when he was done. Letting his shoulders drop, he sat hunched like that, legs extended in front of him, for several minutes.

His exhaustion drained into the dirt. The heat was fading, and it took the last of his energy with it. He pulled his knees closer to his chest and scooted back to lean against a pair of trees with barely six inches between them. One hand rested protectively on his bag, a yellow satchel torn and stained with use. He cut an odd figure, alone and uncertain among the greenery and long shadows of the going day.

Soon enough he was nodding, struggling to keep his eyes open. Every few minutes his forehead touched his knees and he jerked upright, blinking. His face was slack with exhaustion, and he scolded himself for giving in so quickly. He could stand the long miles and late nights, it had been done before by younger children. And they had got where they were going in the end.

His head met his knees again, and when he raised it back up there was violet in the sky. He sighed and stretched his legs, squinting at the dusk and trying to clear the sticky, sandy feeling from his eyes. A glance at his watch told him he had been asleep for hours.

"Great, "he muttered. "I wake up and it's time to pitch camp. Pitch camp here, bang in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Next city, I'm definitely shelling out for a new map."

* * *

In Eterna City, the summer morning gave way to afternoon. Angela finished the sandwich she had brought and gathered up napkin and wrapper in one fist. Tony tutted at the crumbs on her worktable.

"Yes, _mother_. I'm getting to that," she rolled her eyes at him and left the back room to relieve Skip at the register. With a grateful look, he went out of the showroom to eat his own lunch.

"See any more of those space-guys?" Tony asked, wiping his hands on a rag. "They still marching around out there?"

"Nah," Skip pulled the lettuce out of his sandwich and dropped it into his lunch bag. "They turned off onto the Boulevard after you guys left. I saw them talking to the corner store lady, though. She looked pretty mad."

"Huh," Tony came over and swiped a handful of chips from Skip's lunch. "Maybe they're not actors, then."

"At least not the famous kind."

"Are you guys still talking about that?" Angela called, unseen. Tony snorted and made a face at Skip.

The same sun that hung low over the head of the boy on the dirt track was sinking over the roofs of Eterna. The cycle shop's employees had lapsed back into their work again, into the comfortable routine carved clean by days, and months, and years. Rickshaw in the office, Skip at the register, Angela and Tony in the repair room, and Triumph happily underfoot. The sounds of the street, never loud to begin with, were dying down. Lights were coming on.

Skip hummed aimlessly, tunelessly; a song he had heard somewhere but couldn't quite remember. He rested his elbows on the counter and thought about his paycheck, and his dinner, and the show he was going to watch if he could get to the TV before his aunt June. He cocked his cap and examined his reflection in the window.

The shop door flew open and bounced against the wall. The little bell clattered to the floor, its light tones turned harsh and panicky, and Skip raised his head. An elderly woman stood panting in the doorway, holding a trembling Kricketot close to her chest.

"Hey, lady…uh, ma'am. You got a problem?"

"I'm so sorry, I—I can't—please, is there a trainer here?" The woman stumbled in, and Skip sidled out from behind the counter, eying her uncertainly. Her thin arms were shaking, and her Kricketot was cowering in obvious fear. Tony and Angela came out of the back room.

"No, this is just a bike shop," Skip said. "Are you in trouble or something?"

Angela shouldered forward. "What's going on here?" She stepped over Triumph and approached the old woman. Triumph gave a high-pitched chatter of unease, and scampered behind the register. The woman drew a deep breath, and stroked her Pokémon's shiny shell.

"I need somewhere to rest…to hide…the police, they just—" She was interrupted by a sudden coughing fit, and Angela and Tony exchanged worried glances. Drawn by the commotion, Rickshaw stepped into the room.

"What you see is what you get, ma'am. Will you just explain to us what's going on? We have a phone, you can call the police station if you'd like."

"The police can't help this!" the woman said hoarsely, her voice tinged with panic. "They move too fast, they're too strong. I'm sorry; I…let me start from the beginning.

There were people in Celestial Square, all dressed up in the strangest outfits. Uniforms. They swept in and, and, it was just mayhem. They took the few trainers by surprise, beat them and took their Pokémon. It was all over so fast. They tried to take this little one too, but I ran…"

Her Kricketot rasped its feelers together and squirmed in her arms. Rickshaw came to her shoulder and led her to a chair. "Calm down, ma'am. It'll be alright. Did you go to the police? I'm sure they can sort this all out." His comforting words belied his unease, and he felt almost foolish suggesting the police. They were a small volunteer force, their badges better for intimidating the occasional shoplifter than for dealing with large-scale Pokémon theft.

"A bunch of guys, you say?" Tony broke in. "Did they have, you know…weird hair? They looked like spacemen?"

The old woman nodded. "I saw them earlier today. Didn't think they were any harm…"

The door crashed open for the second time in less than ten minutes, and the old woman cringed in her seat. A Stunky, thickset and savage, waddled into the room as if it owned the place, followed by four uniformed men. The shop bell lay forgotten on the cold tiles.

"Come on now, granny," the leader sneered, "It's pretty rude to make us chase you all this way."

Rickshaw stepped forward to meet him. "Get out of here," he told the men, in a tone that brooked no argument.

The leader lifted his chin and looked coldly at Rickshaw. "Huh? Come on. There's still time for you to convince us that you have nothing to do with this, old man. Butt out."

"You're on my property, threatening an Eternan citizen. Get out, and take your Pokémon with you." Bracing his feet and drawing himself up, Rickshaw met the intruder's stare with more assurance than he felt. His opponent scowled and rolled his eyes.

"Playing hero, huh? People have tried that, you know. Down in the valleys and up in the mountains. In cities bigger and tougher than this one. _It doesn't work_. We're Team Galactic."

He nudged Stunky with his foot. "They're in the way. Smoke them out."

The shop employees ducked as a billow of gas began to fill the showroom. Tony dropped to his knees and scrambled behind the counter, pushing Skip in front of him. He could hear the old woman begin to cough again.

Triumph huddled down in the farthest corner, half-hidden behind a stack of boxes. Heart pounding, Tony gave her a quick pat and raised himself up on his knees to peek over the counter.

He saw the old woman on the floor, her hands empty. Rickshaw knelt beside her, and Angela was struggling towards the door. The air was thick with a noxious purple fog, and though he tried to take shallow breaths there was no escaping it. His vision was obscured by rising tears, and his nose began to run freely. Beside him, Skip was suffering the same effects. He was doubled over with his knees against his chest, his lanky frame racked with deep coughs.

Through the painful haze came the sound of the shop door opening and slamming shut. Angela clapped a hand over her mouth and shoved her way through the rows of bikes on the showroom floor, ignoring the domino effect she set off. Lungs burning, she slumped hard against the door and nearly fell onto the gravel path outside.

Rickshaw came after her, half-carrying the old woman. Triumph scurried in his shadow. Twilight had come down among the rooftops, draped itself along eaves and chimneys. A plume of gas followed Tony and Skip out of the shop and into the clear warm air.

The employees of Rad Rickshaw's Cycle Shop stood on the withered lawn and watched the air clear. The woman from the corner store looked curiously at them through her own window, but the street was empty. The world had shifted suddenly, and in the near-silence the sounds of sniffling and coughing seemed unnaturally loud. Skip hung on Tony's arm, too shaken to be embarrassed.

They found themselves taking shallow, fearful breaths even after the purple gas was no longer visible. Angela dragged a hand across her face, grimacing at her wet sleeve. When she brought her eyes up, she met the gazes of the others reflected in the shop window.

Rickshaw turned to the old woman and detached her shaking hand from his sleeve. "Where do you live, ma'am?"

"Si—sixty-three Perennial Plaza."

"I'm a block over," Tony spoke up. His voice was raspy. "I'll walk you home. That is," he looked at Rickshaw, "If we're, um, closing up. It's a little early."

The shop owner sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "It's not too early for tonight. Let's pack it in, folks."

Back in the shop, an acrid smell lingered. The windows and doors were wide open, and the worst of the gas had dissipated. Tony shouldered his bag, eyes still stinging, and offered his arm to the old woman. "You ready, Mrs. Leighton?"

She took it with a shaky smile. "Such a gentleman."

Angela came up behind them. "Hey, you live up in North End, don't you?" Tony said distractedly.

"Yeah. So?" She managed to sound carefully noncommittal even with a voice thick from gas-induced tears.

"So…walk with us?"

She eyed him inscrutably. "It wouldn't be for very long, you know. I'm nearer Edge West really."

"Come on, you've never walked with me before."

"I stay a _lot_ later than you do," she snorted. "Well, I'm not going on your arm like a debutante, that's for sure. Let's get going."

The purple sky saw them turning off the shop's gravel path and onto the asphalt, three small cutouts in the haze of dusk. Rickshaw stood by the window and watched them go. "What about you, Skip? You getting home all right? I can walk you."

"No, yeah, I'm like a block over, actually. I'm staying with my aunt and uncle for a few weeks. It's fine."

"Oh, your folks out of town again?"

"In Sunyshore," Skip gave a short hard bark of laughter, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Happy anniversary to them."

Angela and Tony walked slowly down Centennial Drive with old Mrs. Leighton between them. The trees of late summer were silent overhead, and the air was dead and still. Tony stepped carefully over a trash bag, eyes on his feet, but his head shot up when Mrs. Leighton's fingers tightened convulsively on his arm.

He stopped—before them was a scorched stretch of cobbles, scored with claw marks and riddled with bits of rock. At one point the heavy stones had been torn free of the road and were jumbled around the edges of a small pit.

Wrinkling her nose, Angela looked around. There was smoke in the air, but Centennial was unnaturally empty. The handful of shops facing the area had their curtains drawn.

"What kind of Pokémon makes that big of a mess?" Tony breathed, examining the claw marks. "Wow. This is…this is just…"

"Never seen anything like it," Angela filled in before he could get to _scary_. She didn't want to hear that, not right now. _This is scary_.

They moved on, and night kept falling.


	3. Contagion

Author's Note: I'm posting this from Taipei, twelve hours out of my usual time zone, so I can't predict when the next several chapters will go up. Thanks for your patience, and enjoy!

* * *

The next morning found Skip wide awake and aching, unused to the fold-out couch in his aunt and uncle's house. The guest room was lit by that soft glow that comes just before sunrise, the dark of the night paling to a hazy gray. It was already looking to be a hot one, the next in a long line of brilliant summer days.

Swinging his arms up above his head, Skip stretched and dropped his chin onto his chest. The couch springs twanged and he looked around guiltily; his aunt June was a light sleeper. When he was satisfied that all was still, he flopped onto his back again. He could speak without pain now, and the rawness in his throat had all but vanished.

The previous night he had rubbed furiously at his eyes as he crossed onto the neighboring block, but to no avail. Aunt June had greeted him with a murmur of worry, and he realized that he must look like hell.

"Oh, Skip, what happened to you, honey?" She said, patting him on the shoulder in a way that made him want to snarl. He was stung and shaken, and definitely not in the mood to be fussed over.

"Nothing," he replied, more sharply than he intended. "I just tripped. And fell. While I was walking home, that's all." The lie slid out as easily as breathing, and he pressed his lips together, trying to steady himself. He didn't know his aunt and uncle that well. They were aging, childless, and they were doing his vacationing parents a favor. He was used to being a favor; his parents were busy people. But it had to stop there—he wouldn't be fussed and worried over and, and _pitied_ by them.

June patted him again and sat him down in the narrow living room. "Do you need an ice pack? I bet that'll be just the thing. Wait right here." Skip fiddled with his blue ball cap and watched her go. He had been gassed and his workplace terrorized, the comfortable track of his comfortable life suddenly shoved out of alignment by a gang of vicious thugs. His life had held nothing so violent or cruel up to this point, and the suddenness with which he had lost control of it made him seethe with anger. It was unexpected, it wasn't _right_.

He was too old—almost sixteen. Too old to want his mom. And he knew he didn't want his aunt, for all her kindness. She had come back when he wasn't looking, and now she pressed a bag of frozen berries into his hand.

"Don't keep it on for too long, remember. And dinner'll be ready in about fifteen minutes, so no snacking."

Resting the bag absentmindedly on his knee, Skip leaned back and let the chair swallow him. He spun his cap on one finger, and when it bounced free and winged across the room he didn't bother to go after it. His indignant anger and lingering fear made him draw into himself and go silent. He sulked there until he could smell roasting vegetables in the next room.

Dinner with Aunt June and Uncle Scott was quiet. They would start their own conversations, remember suddenly that he was their guest, and clumsily try to engage him. Skip refused to be put at ease. He stuck to his story and ate ravenously, barely talking.

He hung around at the table for some time after, clearing away the dishes to assuage what little guilt he felt for his attitude. The alternative to holing up in his bedroom as he would at home was to hunker down in front of the TV, and he did so. When his aunt sat down and asked if he minded her changing the channel, he didn't stop her.

Now, in that crystalline time that preceded the dawn, he got up from the couch and padded over to the window. His aunt and uncle's house was, like his own, a stucco row house hardly wider than a single mid-sized room. Instead of growing sideways it went back and up, three floors up to the narrow sitting room where Skip slept. He parted the curtains and breathed on the glass.

When the condensation cleared, he looked down into the cobbled street. _We're Team Galactic_, the invader from last night had said, with a careless arrogance. He had been confident that no one could challenge him—that against _Team Galactic_, the people of Eterna didn't stand a chance. Skip snorted in sudden resentment, and leaned his forehead against the glass. There had to be more of them out there.

He went downstairs in his pajama pants, wincing at every creak of the unfamiliar steps. Unlocking the door as quietly as he could, he stepped out into the stillness of the morning. The cobbles were smooth against his bare feet. He picked up the newspaper and stood a little ways from the stoop, looking uneasily down the street and on.

* * *

The traveler by the empty road had risen even earlier than Skip, and by the time the sun was full up he was well on his way east. He had been born to the south and west, and this journey was the longest he had ever taken. The shifting patterns of sun on leaves dappled the earth around him as he went.

The trees were thickening, until he passed out of the meadowlands altogether and came into a low wooded country. There, the underbrush caught at his legs and the light of the sun was abruptly blocked out by the canopy overhead.

He stopped just a stone's throw inside the tree line and rummaged for his faulty map.

"Forest's been here since time immemorial or whatever, should be a safe bet," he muttered, unfolding it and running a finger along its creases. "Oh, yeah, here we are. The map knows this one. Eterna Forest. About time, I guess."

Eterna Forest was close and dark around him, and the further he walked the shorter and more cautious his stride became. Voices called from the underbrush, and the paths led him in what seemed like circles. Doubling back and doubling back, always with the vague feeling that he had seen this tree or that stone before.

Under the leaves it was cooler than out in the open, and he consoled himself with that small fact. It was no dry dirt track to who-knows-where. He had a destination in sight, though he still wasn't sure if he had made the choice of his own free will. The next city was close now, closer than he had ever imagined it would get.

* * *

Angela poked her head in the door of the office, shop keys still dangling from her hand. "Morning, boss."

Rickshaw surfaced momentarily from behind the newspaper. "Morning, Angela. Got a lot of clean-up today." Triumph sat at his feet, cleaning her short fur.

"Right," her lips twisted in a sheepish smile, as she remembered pushing over the bikes the night before. "Um, sorry about that. Is it anything bad?"

"Not so much, actually. Don't worry about it—just make sure the display goes back up all right." He smiled back at her, anxious to show that there were no hard feelings. "Not exactly a routine night last night."

"You, ah…you can say that again." For once, she seemed to have little to offer in the way of complaints or chitchat.

Rickshaw straightened his newspaper and his gaze swept around the shop. He was quiet for a long moment before nodding at her. "We'll get over it."

Angela was righting the fallen bikes by the front window when Tony came in. She straightened and looked at him in surprise. "Well, would you look at that? You're in early."

He shrugged and ran a hand through his dark hair. "Well, thought you might like a hand with last night's mess. So. I, uh, got up early-ish. Only it doesn't count, I think, because you're here already."

"Darn right it doesn't," she smirked. "But the effort is appreciated."

Tony vanished into the repair room, and soon she heard the familiar sounds of tinkering and rummaging coming from the back. Skip turned up not long after, and she gladly yielded the register to him.

Pausing once in a while for a sip of coffee, Rickshaw worked steadily through his billing file. It was a relief to bury himself in his work after the previous night. He acted much the same as always, but he was deeply shaken by what had transpired. If a man's home was his castle, then the business he had lived above for years was a close second.

It galled him, though he knew he had had no control over the situation. A pack of strangers could burst in and tear down the place he had worked for years to build up. Angela, Skip, and Tony worked for him, but they weren't safe with him.

Seeming to sense his discontent, Triumph climbed into his lap and nuzzled his writing arm. He barely saved an invoice from permanent ruin by inkblot, but smiled in spite of himself as he reached down to pat her between the ears.

"Who's a good girl, huh," he murmured, his voice gone soft and low. "That's you, isn't it? That's you."

He looked around furtively, but he and Triumph were alone in the office still. He smiled and deposited her on the ground, and returned to his work.

Skip lounged by the register much like he had the day before, but instead of being steeped in boredom, his mind was spinning. Everything about Team Galactic set him on edge, and he couldn't let go of the idea that the attack on the shop was just a symptom of a greater disease. Uniforms were for armies, but the region hadn't gone to war since long before his parents' time. Armies weren't a thing that happened these days; people didn't just band together and decide to set the world on fire.

Glancing casually down the street, he stopped his fidgeting and stood stock still beside the register when he caught sight of the small Team Galactic gang that had just turned the corner. It numbered perhaps eight men and women, walking easily down the street as if they belonged there. Skip leaned over for a better view, a scowl stealing over his face.

Two of the women in the group were in close conversation over something they held between them. As they passed by the shop Skip saw that it was a trainer's belt, segmented to store six Poké Balls. One of the women held it up like a prize, and her companions began to grin and nod.

Skip thought of Mrs. Leighton and her Kricketot. Disgust swept through him, but it was quickly undercut by a knee-jerk urge to flee. His face went red, and he turned away from the window and pretended to study a mountain biking magazine. There was no point in watching any longer.

Rad Rickshaw's had few customers that day. Though no one left the shop, the air of unease and expectance that had begun to permeate the city could be clearly felt. Tony, Angela, Skip, and Rickshaw passed in and out of the showroom without seeing much of the usual activity that characterized Eterna in summer.

A Pokémon trainer came in a little after noon, a round-faced, cheerful man who seemed anxious to pick out his new bike.

"I can pay in cash, I'd rather not drag this out," he said to Angela, who was showing him some of the newer models. "Best way to get out of town is on wheels, after all."

"Out of town? I figured you came to challenge Gardenia."

"She's not here—at some Pokémon League event, I heard. Of course, they don't bother to tell us trainers," he shrugged helplessly. "I would have stayed out of town altogether if I'd known. I mean, things just went crazy all of a sudden."

"Don't I know it," Angela said grimly. "We had a little run-in with Team Galactic ourselves."

The man tested the feel of a padded seat, giving her a sympathetic look. "Whoa, really? I knew they were staking out hotels for trainers, but a bike place is a little much."

Skip leaned over the register with interest, eyeing the trainer's belt. He wore it openly, knowing it was his right. It was what gave him license to travel the region, made him part of a fellowship of sorts. Taking it away would be more than just common theft.

The day dragged on, tense and quiet, as the sun overhead dropped lower. The shadows were long and the street still empty when Tony turned to Angela.

"Walk home with me?"

She gave him a searching look, but he could find no hint of malice there. Finally she said, offhandedly, "Sure."

Skip came with them to the end of the road, raising a hand in farewell as he turned left onto the block where his aunt and uncle lived. Angela and Tony turned right towards the North End neighborhood.

Angela was curt and Tony chatty as they walked down Eon Street—no different from their usual dynamic. The night drew in all around them, and their steps sounded loud and out of place on the cobbled streets. Their talk turned inevitably to Team Galactic.

"You think Gardenia could beat them if she was here?" Tony asked.

"Maybe if there weren't so many of them. I heard her disciple trainers aren't bad either, but there are only like five people in that flowery Gym to begin with," Angela said sourly. "They're hardly Pokémon League elite. You have to go way east to get to the real scary guys."

"That'd be the coolest, if the League showed up to kick these guys out. I was so gone on the whole trainer thing when I was a kid. Watched all the shows and collected the toys and everything."

"Wasn't everyone? Even I got into it for a while. My family had a pet Shinx. But bikes are way less work." Angela grinned in the twilight, her pace even with Tony's.

"Hah, I know, right? My parents were smart; they never gave me a Pokémon no matter how much I whined."

Angela opened her mouth to speak, but she was cut off by the rush of bodies coming in from a side street. She stumbled against their leader, mumbled an apology—and noticed too late that the entire group was in Team Galactic uniform. They fanned out slowly, surrounding the two mechanics. A harsh-faced woman gripped Angela's shoulder hard and kept her from moving.

"What are you two up to, then?"

Tony held up his hands in a gesture that was half-placating and half-submissive. "Nothing, we swear. We're just walking home from work. We didn't know you were there."

Angela tugged herself from the woman's grasp and stepped back to take a better look. The uniform was obviously a custom job: skin-tight and showing rather a lot of leg. The woman's dark hair was pulled into a bun instead of the customary blue bob, and she stood looking at Angela and Tony as if they were unspeakably low.

With a sinking feeling, Angela realized that this was a big shot.


	4. Bunker Town

The Team Galactic woman's cold gaze raked over Angela and Tony, and they both fought the urge to cringe. Her face was like stone. She folded her arms and waited for them to speak.

"Look, anyone could tell we're not trainers," Angela said evenly. "We don't have any Pokémon."

"I know that; you're pointless," the woman replied. "And for future reference, picking up Pokémon is grunt work. _I_ am a Galactic Commander."

"No need to keep us here then," Tony said sharply, and immediately regretted his words. The Commander threw him a chilled, calculating glance.

"No, there's reason enough. I'm the face of Team Galactic in this city. It's my duty to perform some…community outreach." In the next moment her hand was at her belt, and Angela and Tony were temporarily blinded by a red light.

"You people need to understand what you're dealing with—anything else is intolerable. Skuntank, show him how the game is played."

A dark-furred Pokémon bulled into Tony's chest and knocked him to the ground, and the wind left him with an audible gasp. Angela moved to help him, but two Galactic thugs pinned her arms behind her. Skuntank crouched on Tony's chest like something out of a nightmare, and the Commander's expression changed for the first time: she smiled serenely. Tony's fingers twitched convulsively on the pavement.

The creature leaned in, its rank breath fanning across Tony's cheek. He screwed his eyes shut as its paws clenched, the heavy claws ripping his shirt and scoring his chest with thin red lines.

"Violence is _never_ the answer," the Commander said pleasantly, and her voice came to them as if over a great distance. "Rebellion is a nasty, ugly thing. So lay still, Eterna, and let Team Galactic walk. It's in all of our best interests. We didn't come here to make a mess. _Don't push us_."

They stood deadlocked for what seemed like ages, until an abrupt word from the Commander brought Skuntank to her side. With a tip of the head, she said lightly, "Pass it on."

Tony lay on his back on the sidewalk, staring at nothing, as Team Galactic resumed formation and sauntered off.

"Are you okay?" Angela asked as she helped Tony to his feet. "Did it break the skin? I hear wounds from Pokémon like that can go septic."

He shook his head mutely, bringing a hand to his chest and exploring the marks there. Angela stood beside him in the deepening dark, unsure what to do. It was a while before he looked up.

"It's not as bad as it looks," he said, and tried to force a smile onto his face. The only effect was to make him look paler and more drawn than before. He began walking again, with effort, and Angela stayed close at his elbow. He was unsteady on his feet, and several times she caught his elbow as they went around a corner. She didn't take her own path but followed him up to the door of his apartment block.

"You going to be all right?" she asked, as he stared vacantly over her shoulder. "Hey. Tony."

"Hmm? Oh—oh, yeah. I'm just…I just need to sit down a while, okay?" He nodded at her, and she patted his shoulder awkwardly. "I, um…good night."

"'Night."

Angela turned and walked off into the dark, and Tony stood watching her go.

Skip had finished his dinner and was settled down in front of the TV again, knees pulled up against his chest. He saw but hardly registered the flickering lights and colors; instead his mind was filled with questions. Team Galactic had a complete hold on his imagination. In their unexplained cruelty, he saw a greater design. They had order and intent. They were planning something.

Skip had no particular interest in Pokémon. As pets they were high maintenance, as laborers they were useful only to the working class. He knew that children often left home to train them, especially in rural parts of Sinnoh, but he couldn't fathom the mindset that would lead them to leave everything behind in pursuit of—what?

"Skip, it's for you!" his aunt called, startling him from his reverie. "Mr. Rickshaw," she told him, holding out the phone. "I'm not sure what he wants."

"Boss?"

"Skip. Listen, I…we're not going to be open tomorrow." Rickshaw's voice was heavy with defeat, and he sounded like a much older man that the one who had offered to walk Skip home hours earlier. Skip stiffened as if bracing for a blow.

"What? Why? Did something happen?"

Rickshaw let out a long breath. "They got Triumph." Skip didn't need to ask who 'they' were. "They called it a 'surprise inspection'. Well, I tell you, we were surprised. I was about to take her out for a little air; she can't stand being cooped up in the apartment. They were here and then gone…took less than ten minutes."

"Are you okay?"

"I'll live. Shop's a wreck, though, not fit for business. Don't bother coming in tomorrow. I already called Angela and Tony."

"Come on, Boss, we can help you clean up and stuff. We don't need to close, we still got the rest of the season." Skip hated the exhaustion in Rickshaw's voice, hated his own feeling of helplessness. There were more than just city blocks between them.

"Skip, no. I'm sorry. I can't do this right now."

The dial tone droned in his ear, and he dropped the phone into its cradle. He had worked at Rad Rickshaw's Cycle Shop for two years, his first job. Leaving it now, and hearing the man he had relied on for all that time telling him things wouldn't go on—it felt like a personal defeat. It was compounded by a sharp pang of sorrow for Triumph, who had been Rickshaw's beloved pet for longer than Skip had owned his bike.

He stalked back into the living room and collapsed into a chair, and the city stood still in the night.

In the north of town, Angela was doing dishes, stacking and scrubbing with unusual ferocity. She had just come from a similar conversation with Rickshaw, and she channeled her energy into her chores as she tried to figure out how to feel about it. It was good sense, she supposed—and wasn't she supposed to be the sensible one? Closing the shop felt like admitting a loss, though, no matter that they had never considered themselves part of a fight.

Angela had been a bike lover since she was ten. She raced her friends around the block, and then her classmates in children's league road races, and then hundreds of other cyclists in time trials, road races, and cross-country courses. She wasn't used to losing.

Team Galactic had caught out the lively motion of summer. Eterna was a town of many characters, but trainers were its vital signs, and Team Galactic's sheer numbers were driving them out. That single startled moment when Rickshaw pronounced his shop down for the count did not end. It had caught the employees off guard, and now it hovered, crystallized, stretched. It grew out of that evening and lengthened into days without joy. Eternans looked uneasily at the abandoned mall Team Galactic had taken over, and they were cautious in the streets.

Skip woke early the following morning and lounged around the house, unsure what to do with himself. June and Scott were reluctant to let him wander the city alone. They worried with the over-solicitous, over-sweet worry of people who have never had children and wonder if this makes them inferior. He hated it, and felt guilty for hating it, but no one could really be blamed. In his current state of mind he needed something to hate.

Tony became more restless than before, acutely aware of the red welts Skuntank had left on his chest. He watched them anxiously for signs of infection, and though they burned in the night they never made him sick. When he moved his shirt dragged across them, and he was reminded of their presence, of the arrogance in the Galactic Commander's eyes. He felt marked.

Rickshaw had told him that he only expected to close the shop "for a little while," but he knew by some instinct that that _little while_ would drag on and on. _Just a few more days. Just a little longer, please. _Rickshaw had been so obviously putting on a brave face when he had said so. The money wouldn't be an issue for some time yet, but Tony needed to be busy.

Angela was more like him than she knew. She drowned her days at home in a flurry of activity, reorganizing her kitchen, books, and music, clearing closets and dusty shelves. She made herself aggressively busy, working on all the projects she had promised herself she would one day tackle and refusing to look out the window. She couldn't stand to be idle, but she couldn't stand to think about her real job either.

Rad Rickshaw kept to his apartment. He could not leave without going through the ransacked showroom, so he rarely did. One morning he made a halfhearted attempt at putting the shop back together, but it brought back thoughts of his beloved pet, too soon, and too hard. The window guards stayed down.

Three days passed, and in the heat of the fourth Angela left home. She needed groceries, but when she stepped into the street she found that she needed just as badly to get out in the fresh air. She walked along the cobbles and breathed in deep under the sapling trees in leaf. The air was warm.

She did her shopping quickly, but was reluctant to take the short route home. With a bag on each arm she kept on walking, looking out for Team Galactic. She could see the roof of their converted base if she tried, but it was far from her neighborhood, and for that she felt lucky.

Their thugs were still on the streets, leering at passers-by and holding loud, animated conversations. They loitered in the doorways of hotels and staked out the Pokémon Center—never alone, but in groups of three or four. People crossed the street to avoid them, and in her time outside Angela saw not one Pokémon. Team Galactic had wormed their way into the fabric of the city, a kind of fearful clot or stain, and they were at ease.

She turned into Celestial Square and went to cut across the park, and was momentarily cheered by the thickness of the green above her. It was cooler under the treetops, and a light breeze stirred the branches as she passed. When she emerged and crossed onto Flood Avenue due north, sunlight stung her eyes for just a moment. When her vision cleared, Tony was there.

He was turning into the square she had just left, a jacket over his arm and a shuttered look on his face. In the few seconds it took for her to get her bearings again, he had nearly passed, and she twisted her body to glimpse the side of his face as he went. The air felt thick, and Angela was suddenly more aware of the heat, its oppressive weight.

Tony gave an awkward nod that she saw from the corner of her eye. Weighed down by shopping bags, her arm rose slightly in an abortive wave. The world shifted, then, and they passed one another with barely a greeting. Angela walked on.

"Aunt June, I'm going to Josh's," Skip called back through the open door, and took the faint reply from the kitchen to be a _yes_. He shoved the heavy double door shut behind him and bounded down the granite steps into the street. Josh had been the first name to come to mind, but he had been away with his parents for almost two weeks. All Skip wanted was a reason to be allowed out of the house.

He had been four days out of work, and the fuzziness of the summer afternoon was making him restive. He walked off down the street, hands in his pockets, staring curiously around. He was Eterna-born, a city boy who knew the complicated labyrinth of cobbled roads as well as he knew himself. It was a pedestrians' city, full of charming narrow lanes and well-maintained parks. He walked with no particular destination in mind.

Once or twice, he ducked into the shadows when he saw a group of Team Galactic members going by. He didn't look in the least like a trainer, but he didn't put it past them to accost him for no reason at all.

He found himself heading toward the western residential neighborhood—his own area, where his empty house was locked and awaiting his parents' return. The streets were narrower there, the cobbles older and more prone to cracking and buckling. The canopy of Eterna Forest was just visible between the buildings. He trotted down a lane lined with trees newly in leaf, comforted by the familiar surroundings.

A shout rang out from the end of the lane, where it connected to one of the wider roads leading into the center of town. A boy about Skip's own age pelted around the corner, stumbled, picked himself up again, and came running down the street. A Zubat was flying after him, uttering thin squealing cries.

The boy was carrying a weathered yellow bag over one shoulder—clearly a traveler. But what drew Skip's attention were the four Poké Balls on his belt. Zubat dived at them intermittently and he did his best to shoo it away with his hands. As Skip tried to process what he was seeing, he heard an angry chorus of voices approaching from the street. They were followed by four Team Galactic thugs who rounded the corner in a jostling pack, and at the sight of them Skip sprang into action.

He dashed forward and grabbed the running boy, dragging him onto a side street. The boy might have spoken, but in the next moment they crashed through a low hedge and into an alley between row homes. Skip led the boy up the alley, certain now of where he wanted to go. It was so narrow that Zubat was forced to fly above the roofs, and Skip's shoulders scraped the fences on either side. They swerved south, emerged onto a wider residential road, and ran up the blocks under the screen of trees.

They were trees planted by the neighborhood association years ago, and Skip ground to a halt beneath the one he had helped his father plant when he was only five. He spared only a moment to look at the darkened windows of his home before sliding the spare key out from its hiding place under the lintel.

With a furtive glance down the street and back, he unlocked his house and shoved the boy inside. With the slam of the heavy door the faint voices of their pursuers were abruptly cut off, and Skip bent over with his hands on his knees in the entryway, panting.

When he looked up, the boy was standing where Skip had shoved him, staring around the living room. He seemed to be waiting for Skip to speak.

"Uh, hi," Skip began awkwardly, and he saw the boy jump. "You okay?"

"Uh-huh. I think they would've caught up with me if you hadn't, um…well, yeah. Thanks." The boy was slightly winded from their run. As he spoke, he tugged his red beret off and twisted it in his hands. He seemed unwilling to meet Skip's eyes.

"Well, I'm Skip. Christopher really, but nobody calls me that. It's just one of those things you pick up when you're little, I guess, and it never really goes away, you know…" Skip checked his rambling with difficulty, and shot the other boy a grin. The smile he got in return was tired but heartfelt.

"I'm Douglas. Nice to meet you." Douglas pushed a hand through his short dark hair, his other hand straightening his rumpled vest. Skip clapped him on the shoulder and they went into the living room.


	5. Flying Blind

_Author's Note:_ This here is the halfway mark. I'm awfully fond of Douglas; he's kind of a wimp but you'll get to see him straighten up over the course of the story. He has a lot ahead of him, and if things work out it won't stop with _High Gear_.

* * *

Skip went into the living room and threw himself onto the couch. Douglas sat neatly on one of the hard-backed chairs, his feet flat on the floor. He studied the walls, and again let Skip take the lead.

"So, like you probably saw, there are a ton of those creeps in Eterna. They're called Team Galactic."

Douglas didn't look surprised. "I know. I've seen them before."

"Really? Where was that?"

"They took over the Valley Windworks," Douglas said, and on the word _Windworks_ his voice sank and petered out. Skip watched him carefully and didn't bother to disguise his staring. After all, Douglas was doing plenty of staring of his own. "They locked up the researchers and started using the lab. I don't know what for."

"They've been stealing Pokémon here. Just ganging up on trainers in the street, you know, and beating them. I haven't seen a traveling trainer in like ages, actually. I bet you're one of the only ones." Skip settled back into the couch, his mind racing. What would happen if he brought this stranger to his aunt and uncle's? Guilt immediately washed over him. Another body in their small home, another mouth—five mouths—to feed. And the ever-present threat of Team Galactic. It would be impossible.

Douglas shifted his weight. "I should go. I need to find a hostel before it gets dark."

Skip shook his head. "No way. Team Galactic is staking them out, and the Pokémon Centers too. You'd be walking right into a trap. My folks are out of town and I'm with my mom's family. You can stay here."

"What, seriously? That's, um…wow. Thanks." Douglas got a little red, and Skip gave what he hoped was a reassuring grin.

"Yeah, sure. Don't worry about it. As long as you don't burn the place down, right?"

At this, Douglas brought a hand to his belt and winced. "I'll make sure they behave."

Skip had almost forgotten about the four Pokémon. Now, his curiosity piqued, he leaned over to look at the Poké Balls. "Hey, let them out. I mean, if they're not, like, huge fire monsters or something. I want to see."

Douglas' blush deepened, and he somehow managed to look embarrassed and pleased at the same time. "Sure. You did save us, after all." He unclipped the Poké Balls and laid them in a row on the coffee table, and bright jets of light filled the room. When they faded, it was significantly more crowded.

Skip drew his feet up to the foot of the couch when he realized that an imposing feline Pokémon was sitting on them. "That's Luxio," Douglas noted. "She's a little standoffish, but she's not nasty," he pointed to the bird Pokémon that had settled on the back of his chair and was staring around with wide eyes. "Staravia. She's pretty skittish, so don't try to get too close to her right away."

He glanced around, his eyes wandering over the shadows behind the couch and chairs, until his gaze lighted on something there. "Misdreavus is back there. Just watch out, she, um, likes to scream at people from behind. But she's not _mean_, really…"

Skip craned his neck to look and glimpsed a purple glow, a hint of something lurking in the dark. With a shudder, he turned away. "Right, yeah, moving on. I've never seen a Pokémon like that before," he pointed to the creature at Douglas' feet.

Douglas sat up a little straighter in his chair, looking at his Pokémon with obvious affection. "This is Jonesy, he's a Monferno. My first Pokémon."

Jonesy looked keenly at Skip, who stared back, entranced by the flame flickering on his tail. He was a neat lithe creature, with hands that looked almost like the hands of a human child. His eyes were soft and dark, and he padded closer to get a better look at Skip.

As Skip examined his team, Douglas twisted and untwisted his hat in his lap. He knew his face was red, he knew his voice hitched and fell when he tried to speak up. He had been in the forest for days, and alone on the road for days before that. Now, when he had hoped at last to reach civilization and calm, it seemed there was none of that to be had.

Skip offered a hand for Luxio to sniff. He had an easy roughness about him that Douglas envied, something in the long legs and wide hands that promised future strength. Douglas was beginning to feel cowed, the way he always got around strangers. He tried to sit up straighter. Luxio explored Skip's calloused palm, her whiskers dangling over his thumb.

"So, where you from?" Skip asked after a while, glancing up at Douglas.

"Twinleaf Town." Douglas looked away. He knew what Skip would say next. His hometown had a reputation.

Skip whistled and raised his eyebrows. "Whoa, seriously? Then you got your Pokémon from that genius professor guy, right? That's cool." He thought privately that Douglas didn't quite look the part. That little town in the south was famous for the trainers it turned out, precocious children under the wing of Sinnoh's foremost Pokémon expert. People threw around phrases like "model minority" and "standard of excellence." They spoke of Twinleaf trainers as the special ones, blessed by some coincidence of birth.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Douglas shrugged. "Uh, no, actually. I got Jonesy from my cousin, and she got him from Professor Rowan. She was all into the training thing for a while, but in the end she lost interest and just…handed him down."

"She name him, too?"

Douglas gave a wry snort. "Yeah."

Skip laughed too, and they lapsed into companionable silence. Staravia extended her wings to their full length and folded them again with a whistling sigh, apparently at ease. Something cool nudged the back of Skip's neck, and he whirled around.

The Pokémon he supposed was Misdreavus was there, not two inches from the end of his nose—a mass of shadowy ectoplasm that stared at him with mad yellow eyes. As she stared at him he felt an icy shiver crawling down his spine, and his heartbeat jumped without warning. This creature was terror, plain and simple; it was like no other Pokémon he had even seen. He hissed through his teeth and scooted back along the couch.

Douglas couldn't contain his laughter this time; a looser, freer sound than he had made in a long while. Calmed somewhat by his amusement, Skip leaned in to stare at Misdreavus. She stared back, bodiless face fixed in a vacant and unsettling smile.

"She's trying to freak you out," Douglas explained. "She's really playful; it's just one of the…things she does. No using your powers on people, you," he added, but completely failed to sound stern.

"I can see through her," Skip noted with a kind of fascinated horror. "Why can I see through her?"

"Ghost Pokémon," Douglas said. "There's a lot of her kind in the forest if you know where to look. Or fall in the right ditches."

Outside the shadows lengthened. The street was livened for a short while by people returning home from work, and the sounds of row house doors opening and shutting boomed dully from outside. Skip sat across from Douglas, the once-empty living room made cozy by the crowd of Pokémon, and they talked. Douglas was diffident and didn't really seem to believe that Skip was interested in what he had to say, but Skip kept coaxing him out.

Douglas shared stories of the road, of campfire mishaps and fishing trips. He was fourteen, Skip learned, but he didn't ask, as adults do, about the facts and figures of a stranger's life. No _What do you do_, _Where did you study and for how long_. Instead, asked Douglas what it felt like to take to the road on his own.

Skip swapped him stories of city life, of lights brighter and festivals louder than any in the rural regions where Douglas was from. Luxio curled up next to his feet, and Jonesy sat between them, at times looking from face to face as if he was a part of the conversation. It was twilight when they resurfaced.

"—so I realized they needed more work with endurance than target practice. I was kind of at a loss but then my friend Lew laughed at me and said we should all run wind sprints. I thought, you know, he's just messing around like always—but I tried it and I think it's really helped, even for Staravia. Who flies them, of course."

Skip looked thoughtfully at Staravia, who had tucked herself down and shut her eyes. "Target practice sounds pretty cool though. Fireballs and lightning bolts and stuff, huh?"

Douglas smirked and nodded. "It's pretty cool."

Skip, absorbed in imagining this, happened to glance out the window. As soon as he did, his spirits fell. "Aw," he groaned. "Jeez, it's later than I thought. Sorry, man, but my aunt is gonna be all over me. I have to go."

Douglas nodded again, wishing he wouldn't go. "Okay. Thanks…for this."

"Hey, no problem. Oh, wait. Can you use a stove?"

"Yeah. Is that okay, though? I mean, I have camp food. Some cans of…stuff. And other things."

Skip gestured towards the kitchen. "Help yourself. Like my parents will even remember what was in there when they get back. They don't really pay attention."

"Cool. Um, see you. I guess."

Peeking out the peephole on the door, Skip shot him a lazy gun-finger. "Right, man. See you." Then he was off and down the street, the night air cool on his bare legs. Douglas stood in the middle of the living room, and the house seemed large and still.

"Hey, Jonesy," he said absently. "Let's go check out the kitchen."

He felt like an intruder as he wandered through the house. It had been left in a state of mild disarray, as if the occupants just hadn't yet returned from work or a day in the country. He couldn't shake the feeling that he might be walked in on at any second. He had gone for days without a roof over his head, and he had the strangest feeling now that he was doing something wrong.

He moved up the narrow staircase, peeking with a profound sense of embarrassment into each room. Skip was an only child. There was, however, a full guest room that he entered with great relief—the idea of taking over a stranger's bed had made him feel even more wrong.

"A _bed_," he said out loud, just for the sound of the words. Jonesy gave him a wry look. He scruffed the top of his Monferno's head and went back downstairs.

The next morning, Angela swung her legs out of bed and levered herself upright in one motion. She could feel her thoughts catching up to her. If she let herself lie in bed her mind would wander, if she stared at the ceiling for too long its blankness would magnify her worries. She planted her feet on the floor.

In the half-light she went about her morning as if nothing had changed. It was vital that she do so, because if she looked out the window the order of things went to pieces. Eterna should have been vibrant, even at this hour, but instead it was lifeless. She was out of work and her city lay stagnant. This collection of rooms was her last domain.

Still, she wanted to go out. That chance meeting with Tony the day before had struck a tender spot. The way they had floated on by in the oppressive heat, with barely a greeting, had been profoundly wrong.

After breakfast she showered and dressed mechanically and let her feet take her down into the street. The day had dawned warm and clear and she moved down the sidewalk as if afraid to disturb something fragile. She rounded the corner of her apartment on light feet.

In the shadow of the building, still cool to the touch from the breezes of the night, her bike was locked. It leaned forlornly against the rack, one of many, crowded in and waiting. Angela stepped forward until her knee was pressed to the rear wheel. Rubber scraped against her thin pants, leaving a small patch of grit that she knew would fall away once she moved. Her bike was silver, and if she brought it into the sun it would shine like nothing else.

Quickly, then, with more conviction that she had shown in days, she reached down and undid the lock, slinging it into the milk crate on the back of the bike. It fell with a sudden _clink-rattle-thump _that seemed to her to ring off the side of the building and into the street. Bracing her foot against the rack, she lifted her bike by the crossbar out of the tangle of others and backed out and free. The front wheel spun with a pleasing whirr until she set it to the cobbles.

She moved out of sight of her apartment far faster than she ever could have done on foot, teeth rattling as she took the uneven roads without slowing down. The heat of the day seemed to melt away into a just-right current of cooler air that rushed against her face and stirred her curly hair. The rushing sound, the incomparable feeling of moving steadily on under her own power—it was in her ears and in her chest and straining muscles.

She pitied her co-workers suddenly, for not getting to experience that feeling. Tony had seemed as aimless as she had felt, and knowing Skip he would be going mad with unspent energy. Rickshaw was locked in his apartment, alone. And where was Triumph? Alone too, maybe, caged up somewhere or shipped away. The thought struck suddenly and she pedaled faster to dispel the anger and grief that welled up inside her.

She didn't know if there was anything anyone could do for Triumph now. But Rickshaw was still here, and Tony was here, and Skip could be getting into all sorts of trouble without a job to tie him down. There were things that needed doing.

Tony took the call to return with a kind of fierce joy, and it surprised him with its intensity. _It's just a job_ had long ago ceased to be an expression he took seriously, but he hadn't expected to feel such a surge of hope when he learned that Rad Rickshaw's Cycle Shop was open again. As he rolled down the street on his old green bike, he thought again of the Galactic Commander's attack, and knew that this was a kind of fighting back.

After the encounter he had been marked—the Commander's message had been conveyed in the cuts on his skin and the fear he still felt. But there was more to him, more to Rad Rickshaw's crew, than that.

When Tony arrived the window guards were up, and Skip was standing on his toes, tying the shop bell to its customary spot on the door. He greeted Tony with a happy shout and earned a playful shove in return. The showroom was a mess, strewn with ripped posters and magazines, bike parts, and damaged merchandise. Tony caught his breath at the sight of it, but he didn't have time to soak in the shock; Angela saved him by shoving a broom into his hands.

"About time you showed up."

He grinned. They were back.

* * *

The bit about Misdreavus' tendency to "scream at people from behind" is lifted direct from Bulbapedia-a bit of a break from the didactic wiki tone. I don't think they meant it to sound that...silly.


	6. Run Run

_Author's Note: _I'm back from Taipei now, which means you can expect more regular updates (for the five chapters that are left...). This, I suppose, is where things start to get a little uglier. Douglas is a kid with the misfortune to be born in a place where high expectations are par for the course. The big story of Pokemon is an old, old one, and nobody's allowed to forget it. But he doesn't quite fit the mold-partly because he's missing pieces and partly because there's more to him than that.

* * *

Douglas sat on the couch that wasn't his, in the front room of the house that wasn't his, and ate from a can. It was the camp food he had described to Skip as "stuff." The can claimed that it was stew, with "reduced fat and hearty mixed vegetables", but he had learned over weeks of travel that the best course of action was to heat and eat without thinking about it too much.

He had thought long and hard about using the stove that wasn't his, and what the consequences might be. In the end, he settled for an open flame courtesy of Jonesy—it was what he knew how to handle. You couldn't trust a machine, but Jonesy always knew what Douglas wanted of him.

His team munched contentedly from their bowls. He had a large supply of dry Pokémon food in his bag, which was usually supplemented on their travels by native plants from around the campsite or handouts from the occasional trainers' hostel.

After scraping the sides of the can he sucked his spoon thoughtfully. The shades in Skip's house were down, but he could tell that outside it was sunny and still. He hoped Skip would come back and give him someone to talk to, and that hope surprised him. He had never been one for conversation, and travel with no human company had suited him just fine. His Pokémon never thought less of him for silly social blunders. They were easy.

He had liked Skip immediately, though. He admired the older boy for his confidence and blunt, physical presence. None of his other friends, and they were few, were like that. Now the silence of the house was closing in on him. He sat back and wondered, as he had time and time again, what the journey had been worth.

He hadn't wanted to leave home. Home worked like a little machine, chaining the days together. Reducing them to a series of processes he carried out without ever having to worry. There was only one thing he wasn't safe from, living in Twinleaf Town.

But Jonesy's eyes on the day they had met were large and liquid and asking something of him that he found he desperately wanted to give. His mother had stroked his shoulder and murmured in his ear that she was proud, so proud, and he couldn't bring himself to speak up. With that weight he had taken his bag and gone.

His cousin and Professor Rowan had been excited for him too. Dawn had arrived carrying Jonesy like a package, and when she thrust him into Douglas' arms, along with her never-used badge case and only slightly secondhand fishing rod, he had seen that he was supposed to share in her enthusiasm. He smiled and thanked her as his sense of alienation deepened. The grave old professor had taken him aside and explained to him the dangers, responsibilities, and glories.

So his world had moved, all on its own, and he went along because wasn't that what the children did? The children of small towns, the small towns of the one true belief—they were caught up in the story. You could hide from the big city, live your life in the backwater, but you couldn't hide from the dream. Douglas had dug his heels in at first, but the myth of the Master had eaten him in the end.

_Heroes are not like everyone else. They begin as men and go on and on as legends, _his mother had said. Douglas had taken his bag and gone.

Skip laced his fingers together and swung them upward, delighting in the ache and stretch of the muscles in his back. A mop lay on the floor beside him. The bikes were out on the lawn, gleaming in the sun, while Rad Rickshaw's crew cleaned the showroom.

It was just past lunchtime, and the sun cast its friendly light over their work. Angela was sorting reflective patches and vests, grumbling over the mess but looking rather pleased with herself nonetheless. Rickshaw came up behind her with an armful of mountain biking magazines, and peeked over her shoulder.

"Doing all right there?"

Angela shrugged. It was just like him, to pop up and ask a thing like that when he was the one who had suffered the greatest blow. "Going slowly but surely," she said, and twisted around to look at him. "What about you?"

He looked absently at the magazines, as if not really seeing them. "Ah, yeah. I'm holding up. Thanks."

She wasn't sure if he meant to thank her for asking, or for throwing gravel at his apartment window until he gave in and opened up the shop for her. It didn't much matter, she decided. As he turned to go, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. Already he looked more alive than he had when she had first arrived. Underneath the brave face he put on, though, she knew that he was still fragile.

Tony swept past with four helmets dangling from their straps over each arm. He gave her a flirty little wave with his fingertips, and she snorted. Even his antics were welcome after long days of isolation. She saw that he was doing his best to lighten the mood, and she was thankful.

Angela crouched down in front of the shelf and went back to sorting merchandise. She hadn't finished a whole shelf when the shop door clattered open violently, and the bell Skip had reattached skidded across the floor in front of her. Slowly, she raised her eyes.

Four men in the hated Team Galactic uniform stood in the showroom, and their leader looked disdainfully at the shop employees. "Surprise."

Angela straightened carefully, keeping her hands in front of her. The leader's gaze passed over her, arrogant and unfeeling, and she struggled to keep her anger in check. He strode forward and swept a hand over the counter, knocking objects to the floor that Skip had painstakingly arranged. The boy made a shocked, indignant noise, but did not move from his place beside the window.

The shop seemed frozen as the members of Team Galactic spread out, poking in corners and upsetting the results of hours of work. One woman released a sleek, malicious-looking Pokémon and shoved it forward.

"Glameow, have a sniff around. If there are any Pokémon hiding here, we'll find them."

Rickshaw bristled at that, anticipating more careless damage to his beloved shop. Tony grabbed for his arm as he stepped forward, but he was too late.

The leader of the gang turned, a bored expression on his face, as Rickshaw dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. The shop owner was shaking with rage, and seemed not to see anything but the man before him. "Get out of here." His voice was low and dangerous.

"I was about to _say_," the Galactic leader drawled, "That if you have anything to hide you should just give it up now and save us all some trouble. I'll take that as an objection." He yanked his shoulder from Rickshaw's grasp, and jets of red light filled the room. "Do you know what we do when someone objects?"

Glameow hissed and bared its teeth, and the other Pokémon that had joined it advanced on Rickshaw.

"Zubat, Glameow, Croagunk, Stunky—trash this place."

Skip ducked, fearful of another gas attack, but Rickshaw surged forward. He had been there alone on the night Triumph was taken, and his employees could only imagine what he might be remembering now. He shoved the gang leader hard as Croagunk began to knock over shelves.

Taken by surprise, the Galactic thug howled in fury as he hit the ground. "Are you insane, old man? _Do you have any idea what you just did_?"

Rickshaw stood back, clenching and unclenching his fists and breathing heavily. He had never been a violent man. But this place was all he had left, now that Triumph was gone. He raised his head.

His adversary was picking himself up off the ground, and seemed to be having just as difficult a time restraining his temper. Merchandise was scattered over the floor once again, and Glameow had upset Skip's mop bucket. A filthy puddle was spreading around their feet. One of the other thugs released a new Pokémon.

"That's it," the leader snarled. "That's gonna come back to you big time, you old idiot. Wurmple, tie him up. He's coming down to the base with us."

The bug Pokémon spat a wad of sticky silk at Rickshaw, but missed as Tony dragged his boss out of the way. The manic strength seemed to go out of Rickshaw suddenly, and he sagged against Tony. Stunky leapt.

It collided with Tony in midair, and the repairman felt his chest seize up as he crashed to the floor. The world shifted wildly, and he heard Angela shout. Rickshaw's weight left him abruptly, but Stunky remained. Panic began to overtake him.

Skuntank's grinning maw flashed across his mind, and he smelled Stunky's rank breath and went limp. He could feel the heavy paws resting on his shoulders, threatening more marks, more pain. The sound of his own ragged breathing filled his ears—he was transported back to that hot, painful night and all the panic it had brought.

From over the creature's back he watched as Wurmple's silk bound Rickshaw, as Croagunk socked Angela in the gut, as Skip failed to stop Team Galactic on their way out the door.

It was a long time before the ringing in his ears subsided. Team Galactic's Pokémon had left some time after their trainers, seeming to know where and when they were meant to go. He raised himself painfully from the floor and looked around.

Angela's clothes were stained with dirty water, but she hardly cared. She sat doubled over against the wall, struggling to breathe, arms crossed over her middle. Tony crawled over to her.

"Hey. Hey. Just, um, try and take a deep breath. Does it feel like anything's broken?"

She shook her head wordlessly and batted his hovering hands away. He waited helplessly as her breath came back, in choking fits and starts. Skip came over from the front of the room and sat down on the floor. His shoulders curved and his legs splayed straight, he fiddled with his shirt hem and watched Angela try to speak.

She started off by swearing terribly, and when she ran out of things to say she leaned her head against the back wall and scowled. Tony smiled weakly. She was a fighter. Skip blushed a little and took off his hat.

Putting a hand to his chest, Tony found that Stunky's claws had not broken the skin. New bruises would be coming, he supposed, in the same place as the old ones. He looked at Angela and Skip's faces. They were the ones who were left, now, and Team Galactic seemed set to continue with their plans without missing a beat.

Skip wondered again what exactly their plans might be. Plans that involved stealing even Pokémon that had never battled, like innocent Triumph, and shutting down anyone who stood in their way. He rose, shaking water from his shorts. "I gotta go somewhere. I'll be back."

Tony got up, putting a hand out to stop him. "You'd better not follow them, Skip. I mean it." His tone was devoid of its usual lightness, and he leaned over to look Skip in the eye. "What are you going to do?"

"I just…I think I know someone who can help us," Skip faltered, and went for the door. "Don't worry. I'll be careful."

He pounded down the sidewalk, taking the corners wide, willing the warm air on his cheeks to bring some fresh life back to him. He ran headlong, not at all sure that what he was doing was right—but he had no choice.

No, that wasn't true. There were plenty of choices. In fact, this was the only choice that he _knew_ would send them all further into danger. It was the one that occurred to him as soon as his panicked mind cleared, and he supposed that said something about him. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not. But if he chose to give in, to let Team Galactic run roughshod over the city and the people he cared for, then who would he be?

He was flushed and breathing hard when he burst into his house, shouting Douglas' name.

The younger boy peered around the corner, Luxio bounding before him with tail held high in greeting. "Skip? What's going on?"

"No time," Skip rasped, motioning Douglas over. "Get your Pokémon. I need your help. Please." He choked out that last word as his wind failed him, and for a while he stood sucking in air, unable to speak.

Douglas followed him obediently, this time at a slower pace, and the two trotted down the street, shadows growing long behind them. "What's wrong?" Douglas asked, glancing up and down the street. "Were you being chased?"

"No, I…" Skip trailed off. He had run to Douglas with his mind in a frenzy, propelled by desperation, but now that he had had time to collect himself he had no idea how to ask for help. Douglas was timid, young—how could Skip drag him into this? He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked on.

"Hey, listen. You said you met Team Galactic before, at the Valley Windworks. What happened?"

Douglas flinched. "Why do you ask?"

"I told you, I need your help. These guys, they…they kidnapped my boss at the bike shop, and his pet Clefairy…" Skip ducked his head, his face growing hot. This was all wrong.

"You want me to save them," Douglas filled in flatly. There was a hard quality to his voice that hadn't been there before, and it prompted Skip to look back at him. His large dark eyes had gone dull, and his mouth was set in a thin line. "That's pretty optimistic."

"I _know_, okay?" Skip snapped. "There's no one else. This isn't like the Pokémon thefts; Boss got in their way and they just hauled him off. No telling what they're gonna do to him. I just…we can't let this go. It's not the same."

"Stealing people is different from stealing Pokémon, I know," Douglas said distantly, dryly, and Skip glared at him. He was startled to see Douglas glare back.

"That's not what I meant. Triumph—it's not like we loved her less or anything, it's not like she wasn't a _person_, I just…"

"I know, I…sorry." Douglas put a hand to his bag, where his Poké Balls were hidden. "I can't do it."

"What, you can't even try?" Skip said desperately. Any hope he might have had was waning.

Douglas' shoulders were bent inward, his eyes on the ground. He said, his quiet voice cracking with defeat, "You can't—I can't let you think that I'm that kind of person. Someone who—well. Let me tell you what happened at the Valley Windworks. I think you'll get it then."

Skip fell silent. The look he gave Douglas was uncomprehending, please-please-let-this-be-a-joke. Douglas shook his head and began his story.


	7. Pick It Up Now

_Author's Note: _It's flashback time...and, _finally_, there is a Pokemon battle. Because you've probably had enough of the main characters getting their butts kicked. Time for things to swing the other way. In the end, I decided to write battles in a rather looser manner than what you see in the games and the anime. Why? Well, I feel a little silly having my trainers alternate shouting attacks; that's part of it. I also thought the battle scenes might seem more naturalistic if I put the emphasis on how Pokemon and trainers battle together. More cause-and-effect, more improvisation (and more cheap shots).

* * *

The road out of Floaroma Town was pleasant: a waterside road, bursting green on the sides with the sweet flower fields still in reach of the wind. Douglas was moving on. He had his head up and early summer filled him warm and bright. He had not yet come to the long dirt road.

The last few stops he had made, in villages and camps and hostels, people had greeted him respectfully, acknowledging a trainer about his business. He was further from home than he had ever been, and tentative optimism was taking him. He had three young Pokémon by his side.

His last few battles, too, had gone well. He had shied from challenging Oreburgh Gym, but in other places he had come out victorious or at least gotten advice from older trainers about strategy and training. He had learned that Gardenia of Eterna City might pose less of a challenge to his team, and decided to try for his first badge there. People had seen where he was from and wished him luck, given him presents and guidance. The world was changing shape around him.

A girl was crying in the road. When he had stopped to ask her if there was anything he could do, he had been thinking along the lines of a bandage, a cool drink, an escort home. Instead, she begged him to save her father.

There was a village magistrate in Floaroma, but no police. The road was empty of trainers as far as the eye could see. Douglas thought of Jonesy's eyes and his mother's voice and the great height from which Professor Rowan had looked at him to tell him that he was embarking on a great journey. His departure was expected as the tides are expected. He followed the little girl.

His old nervousness bubbled and rose anew, warring with the stories he had heard as a child. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that this was a magnanimous gesture, the best thing he had ever done. He felt a bit better after that, and kept on.

He could not help but wonder who might have captured the Windworks and the father with them, and for what purpose. The little girl told him, "spacemen." Unable to imagine it, he kept on.

Douglas had ignored the man at the door of the plant at first, captivated by the windmills. Their low throbbing was all around, resonating in his chest and making his fingers twitch. His eyelids flickered involuntarily as great shadows stuttered over the ground. He was dizzy suddenly. He imagined the ground shook beneath his feet.

It was a spaceman at the door. Douglas peered at the man, looked for a hint of humor in the outlandish costume and candy-colored hair. The girl, cowering behind him, turned and fled, and that gave him the push he needed to step forward.

He had not paused to think that anyone might see him as a threat, but this man did. He released both his Pokémon at once, grumbling about guard shifts, and the battle was on.

Jonesy and Luxio made quick work of it but came out the worse for wear, distracted by the mindless thrumming of the windmills. Douglas' nervousness grew as he watched them stumble towards him, and he recalled them to their Poké Balls.

In the power plant the noise was reduced, and his footsteps echoed in the bare halls. He wandered among generators and tiled rooms, toward the voices at the center. There he found Team Galactic.

Their Commander on site was a woman called Mars, with a vicious, playful nature that chilled Douglas to his core. The plant's scientists, one of which was the girl's father, were sitting on the floor in the corner. Mars was up for a challenge, and she waved her underlings away as Douglas stood blinking under the bright lights.

"Come on, kid. I was getting bored out here just listening to the eggheads whine. Distract me."

A beam of red light, and her Purugly stood practically on Douglas' toes, its hackles raised. He stepped back, and in a single glance realized that he wasn't up to the job. Purugly moved with the understated grace of a predator, and it kept one eye on Mars at all times, ready for its cue. He placed a protective hand on his belt, as if to shield his team from this new enemy. He could see it already: those wicked claws stripping Staravia of her feathers, that bulky frame bearing Luxio to the ground, those fangs sinking into Jonesy's glossy fur.

He took another step back, and Mars snickered. The heat was rising to his face, his head filling with pressure, his heart beating loud in his ears. The Galactic commander stepped forward. He bolted.

His feet took him down unfamiliar corners, and as if from over a great distance he heard Mars' voice, "Don't bother. He's not worth it." With his breath dragging in and out he found himself suddenly at the bottom of a flight of stairs. He climbed up sweating, steeped in shame. At the top was a service door that let him out onto the wide riverbank under the sun.

He thought of the road that came after not as the road to Eterna City but the road away from Valley Windworks. He avoided fellow trainers, slept under the stars, threw himself into restless training to quiet the echoes of Mars' voice in his mind.

"That's it? I mean, you just ran away? What did you do?"

"I came here." Douglas wouldn't look at Skip. "I went out of the valley and I came through the forest and here they are again." His steps had been slowing as he spoke; now they stopped altogether. "I can't be what you want me to be, okay—I'm not—I'm just…"

Skip threw his hands up, and stopped too. "Fine. You know what? Just keep going, then." He spoke heavily. "Go out of Eterna and into the mountains, go into the west of the region and get yourself some sun. I bet I can guess who you'll find there."

Douglas stood at his shoulder, and Skip was conscious of the smaller boy breathing, slow and shallow. Their shadows crossed on the cobblestones. Skip looked at his feet. Douglas turned and walked away, down a different street, and Skip did not stop him.

Douglas followed the road away, hardly noticing where he walked. He felt small, smaller than he ever had, and the fear of Mars had come back to him. He could not go for long without imagining his Pokémon utterly broken in battle before an opponent like her. He held onto that fear. He put it up in front of him as an excuse for running away.

Some perverse wish stirred in him to know what Skip's face had been like, at the last. He imagined it would be the last time he saw him. He would have liked to know if his new friend was sneering, or dark with anger, or sadly resigned of the fact that Douglas could not do what the world wanted of him. If it wanted anything at all—perhaps it had never noticed him in the first place.

High, hard voices cut suddenly through his misery, and he stopped. He peered out onto the next street, and saw what he expected and hoped with all his might he would not see.

A small boy was standing by the curb, clinging to an older girl's leg. The girl held a carton of milk, a bag of carrots, and she was cringing back away from two members of Team Galactic.

One of the thugs nudged the boy with his foot, said something in an exaggerated singsong tone. The distance made his words unclear, but the tearful look on the child's face was enough. Douglas drew back into the shadows and pressed himself against a nearby wall.

He flattened his palms against it, and the rough surface chafed and chilled his skin. As he had walked here he could walk back the way he had come, and leave the city. He moved away from the wall and turned to go.

A sharp exclamation rose from the street behind him, and his feet froze to the cobbles. The unmistakable sound of crying, heaving childish sobs, rang off the stones in the empty street. Douglas choked back an answering cry of his own.

He knew then that he was just as trapped as if he was the one being harassed in the street. His mother had sat him on her lap when he was very young, and told him stories about heroes. Dawn had put a little Chimchar in his arms and he had not been able to look away. He brought a hand to his belt.

One of the Galactic thugs, the one who had knocked the little boy down, looked up momentarily as a red light burst in the corner of his vision. In the next moment his partner dodged a jet of fire with a startled yelp—and Douglas was there, standing behind Jonesy, staring around as if he expected to be jumped at any moment.

The man Jonesy had targeted released his Wurmple. Jonesy had fallen back to stand at Douglas' side, but at a murmured word from his trainer he dove for it with obvious relish.

The second thug scrambled to release his own Pokémon, and Jonesy was at a sudden disadvantage. Douglas plunged a hand into his bag, all his lessons on type resistances and double battles coming back to him. His fingers traced the markers on each ball until he found what he was looking for.

Staravia clawed the sky a moment later, looking to him for a command. With his pulse thudding in his ears he could hardly form his intentions into words, and he settled instead for raising a hand to the sky. Staravia swooped, following his thumbs-down gesture into a tight dive. When she was in the air her ungainliness disappeared, and she stooped with a predator's focus on the second thug's Croagunk.

It bounded away from her snatching talons, but Wurmple wasn't so lucky. Jonesy fell upon it before its trainer could shout a warning, and under his fiery breath it curled up and refused to move. The Galactic thug recalled it reluctantly.

Staravia was still chasing Croagunk, who paused every so often to spit a dark, steaming liquid at her. She dodged with little difficulty, tracing its bounding style of movement with a similarly low line of flight.

"Jonesy, get in behind with Ember," Douglas called out, the first time he had raised his voice since the battle began. In any other situation he would have been embarrassed, but here it was just him, his team, and the opponent.

He had judged that the members of Team Galactic on the streets were just grunts; why else would they travel in packs? They had safety in numbers, and they thought it was enough. He had noticed, too, that they carried one Pokémon each. Enough to frighten a normal person, but Douglas had them when it came to numbers. Jonesy closed in on Croagunk's unprotected back, sparks flaring around his muzzle. Staravia banked hard overhead.

A strange feeling was taking hold of him. He felt victory as though it were a tangible thing, drawing closer, just brushing his skin. He could see the next few moments of battle as surely as if they had already happened. His hands clenched convulsively as he watched, and he was not disappointed.

Croagunk whirled, only now realizing that Staravia had paused her assault to let Jonesy get in close. Its trainer gave a cry of alarm, and Jonesy chose that moment to let loose with a fist-sized fireball that knocked it off its feet.

The feeling resolved itself. Excitement was coursing through Douglas, bringing the color to his cheeks. As Croagunk hit the ground he felt a hard wild satisfaction welling up from deep inside. It was something he had felt before, something that surprised him with its strength.

He raised his hand again, pointed toward the ground. "Staravia, use Wing Attack." Staravia fell into her final dive.

As Croagunk struggled to its feet she dropped like a stone, then wheeled at the last second and struck a hefty blow with her outstretched wings. Her opponent toppled and hit the ground once again, out cold.

Douglas drew himself up, panting. He had fallen without knowing it into a three-quarter stance, head high, weight balanced on the balls of his feet. From where he stood the light seemed different. Jonesy came of his own accord to stand beside him once again, head held high and teeth flashing. Staravia hovered by his ear.

The two Team Galactic members stared at him for a paralyzed second. Staravia screeched. They turned and ran.

The girl and boy had run away; when, Douglas had no idea. As soon as he had felt the heat of Jonesy's fire, Douglas had forgotten them. He shivered. He became aware that his hands were shaking, and he pressed them against his thighs. He had enjoyed watching Croagunk fall.

He stood there, alone, and went back to that last thought. It wasn't entirely new. In other battles, in other towns, he had yielded unexpectedly to a fierce joy that grew with each blow and mark his team inflicted. It scared him.

He had done it, though. Gone and saved some people—for the first time seen what he had to do and done it without turning back. A part of him wished they hadn't run. He had fought for them and now he was on his own again. The street was as empty as before, but there were marks on the ground. He wrapped his arms around himself under the sudden weight of the silence.

When he next checked his watch, more time had passed than he had guessed. He had turned as was walking back the way he had come, but he didn't know how long he had walked to begin with. Jonesy and Staravia had been retired to their Poké Balls, and he moved as if half asleep. He came soon enough to the place where he had left Skip.

Had he expected Skip to still be there, waiting for him? He wasn't sure but the sight of that empty spot in the road upset him. He moved on in the direction Skip had been heading in.

He summoned up his courage to talk to the first pedestrian he saw, an older man weighed down with shopping bags. "Ah, sir, um, do you know where Red Rickshaw's Cycle Shop is?"

"You mean Rad Rickshaw's? Yeah, it's not so far…"

A string of confusing directions later, Douglas was wandering down a wide commercial street when he spotted the green awning he had been told to look out for. The door opened silently, and he walked in on a scene of mourning.

An auburn-haired woman, scowling darkly, drummed her fingers on the counter and stared into space while a scruffy young man toyed with a heap of merchandise on the floor. Douglas balked when he saw Skip there too, but forced himself to keep on walking, right up to where he stood slouched against the wall.

Skip watched Douglas approach with hooded eyes. He stayed quiet, feeling somehow as though he might frighten the trainer off if he moved too suddenly. Douglas looked different. His hat was askew, his face flushed with healthy color. He moved with less hesitation in his step. When he said, "I want to help," only Skip understood.

Angela came out from behind the counter, still feeling an ache in her gut. "Skip, who's this?" she demanded, hands on hips. "Friend of yours?"

"Yeah," Skip said, after a slight pause. "He's, um…" It sounded ridiculous when he tried to explain it, especially to her. She and Tony had not asked him to when he had returned alone. He had been reckless, going to Douglas for help, and the walk back had only made him feel more of a fool. He watched the other boy guiltily, careful not to meet his gaze.

"I'm a traveling trainer," Douglas said quietly. When Angela's gaze turned to him he looked away, and Skip watched with something like relief. He didn't want this Douglas to be a completely different person from the one he knew.

"You should get out of town," Angela said bluntly.

"I know."

"Is it a bike you wanted? Get as far and fast away as you can?"

"No. I'm not leaving this city. I said I was going to help you."

Comprehension dawned on Angela's face, and she turned to Skip. "I thought for a second that you went and got one of your friends to help us clean up," she said. "But this…this is nuts."

Skip straightened up, moved forward from the wall. He felt acutely the hazards of his plan and the absurdity of his hope. But he had never been one for giving in—he felt bound to defend himself and Douglas. He opened his mouth.

"I'm for it," Tony cut in. He had, most unusually, been listening without a word. Now he unfolded his long limbs and got up from the floor. "I bet we could do it. Get the boss back, and Triumph too."

Angela rounded on him, and he saw the hope she was trying hard to hide. "Tony, does this look like a joke? Team Galactic is like an army, there's no way we can go up against them."

"No, we don't have to, you see? There's gotta be a way we can sneak into their building. A Pokémon trainer is just the extra security we need. Kid," he turned to Douglas, "You sure you want to do this?"

"I'm Douglas. And, yeah. I think…I think it's all or nothing. It has to happen sooner or later."

The rush of battle was fading, and Douglas could hardly believe what was coming out of his mouth. But he forced himself to think ahead, to battle plans and the best attack formations for fighting indoors. There was no direction to move in now but forward, and he would move Eterna with him. Time, at long last, to take himself at his own word.


	8. Like In the Movies

Angela looked from Tony to Douglas and back again. Her resolve had been halfhearted in the first place, and it was weakening fast. The idea appealed to her, of being able to fight back against Team Galactic with what little they had. It took hold of her imagination and would not let go.

She studied the boy before her. She knew the type. The shy, retiring ones who let the world move on by, never daring to do more than dip their feet in the current. Douglas held one wrist in the other hand, pulling his arm across his chest protectively.

There was something else, though.

It took just as distinct a type of person to make it as a traveling trainer. It took sense, if nothing else. The children who made it proved themselves to be more than just children. Under the elements and the solitude they _lasted_. They had permanence, a solidity which saw them through. Angela thought she might see a little of that in Douglas. It had to be more than wishful thinking.

She dropped her chin onto her hand, and tried not to look too interested. "…Say we did try to sneak into Team Galactic's base. We don't even know the layout of the place. We'd be lost in no time."

Tony grinned triumphantly. "Hah, no! They're holed up in the old shopping-center-that-never-was, remember? It never did get running because of the bigger mall in Veilstone. I mean, all those places are basically the same. They're not mazes or anything."

Angela looked thoughtful. "So you're saying…an open court surrounded by rooms? Yeah, not actually that great of a home base."

"They picked a spot at the head of town, yeah, but it's more intimidating than practical," Tony followed up. "You see?"

Skip dared a look at Douglas. He was following Angela and Tony's debate intently, hands clasped in front of him. His lips were pressed into a thin line, and Skip saw that he was trying to put on a brave face. He reached out.

Douglas started as Skip's fingers grazed the back of his elbow. He tugged automatically at his short sleeves and turned to face the older boy with a questioning look.

"Feels like I missed something. Why did you…" Skip trailed off, his voice barely a murmur. Angela and Tony kept talking. Douglas shrugged.

"I, ah…I just thought about it some more. Are you mad at me?"

"…You thought about it some more? And, what, now it makes sense all of a sudden?"

Douglas managed a slight, impish smile. "No."

Skip rubbed the back of his head, and settled his cap on snugly. "I'm not mad. I don't think I get to be mad; I was the one pushing you. I was being sort of…"

"Sort of crazy? Sort of too hopeful?" Douglas gave a little sigh through his nose. "It's okay. It's…it's good that you think like that, I guess. That's the kind of place I come from."

After a while, Skip nodded gravely. It seemed like the right thing to do. Douglas nodded back at him, and they moved on to the present.

"…We should go. Right now. Just to have a look around," Tony's voice cut into their bubble, and both boys looked up, taken aback.

"You're crazy, Tony," Angela said behind him, but she sounded as if she was reading off a card. She had been waiting for him to say something like this. She was getting impatient.

"All of us?" Skip asked, wanting to be sure. "I'm going. You're not gonna make me stay here."

Tony paused, looking suddenly tired. "Skip. You're fifteen."

"And Douglas is fourteen, and _I brought him here_," Skip folded his arms. "I'm going."

Tony let his shoulders slump. "They gassed us," he said quietly, but as he did he knew that there was nothing he could say to change Skip's mind. "They gassed us and they beat us up and they dragged our boss off to who knows where."

"That's why I have to go. Since when have you been all careful and fussy about me, anyway?" Skip eyed Tony stubbornly.

Tony bristled. "That's…that's not for you to say, okay?" Tony was young enough to remember being Skip's age, and if he was honest with himself he knew that Skip was the one with the greater physical confidence and strength. Douglas he reluctantly accepted as a necessity—a Pokémon trainer was somehow a different class of being—but some hazy sense of adulthood made him deeply uncomfortable with the idea of Skip going along.

"You're going to need me," the boy spoke up, as if reading his mind. "I'm strong and I can run fast if I need to. And I'm not going to do something stupid."

Angela dropped her hands on the counter, palm down, and the sharp smack drew all eyes to her. "Let's just go. All of us, we're wasting time. Skip has a point—we might need a lookout or something. We have no idea how this is going to go down."

Running a hand through his hair, Tony pursed his lips and stared down at the floor. "Huh, well this is a turn-up, isn't it? I thought you were the sensible one. Isn't it in your contract or something?"

She glared at him. "_Tony_. Not now."

Shifting uncomfortably, he looked at her, and Skip, and the clean blank walls. But he offered no more resistance.

Somehow the talk swept on and took them with it; almost before Douglas realized what was happening the shop had been locked up. They stood on the gravel path outside, looking apprehensively at one another.

Angela naturally took the lead, and they followed her down side streets and peaceful roads. Few Eternans were out. What pedestrians there were had their heads down, and shades all across town were low. Team Galactic members were dotted here and there on the streets. They loitered, careless and assured, and the group did their best to keep out of sight.

Skip was plagued by a sudden sense of unreality that folded around him like a cocoon. It was unthinkable, what they were doing. Not even in the secrecy of the night but here, on the road in daylight, in the Eterna City he knew and loved. Or thought he knew. It all seemed unfamiliar now, and hostile. What was this but at attack they were planning? When had this become a fight?

The abandoned building co-opted by Team Galactic rose on the skyline sooner than anyone expected. It was a compact, multi-story shopping center with large windows, and it occupied one whole end of the block it was on. It was set back a ways from the road, unlike other stores in Eterna's commercial district, and the walks that had once been carefully landscaped were now overrun with weeds.

Everyone but Douglas knew the place, but the mere fact of Team Galactic's presence played havoc with their sense of recognition. The invaders' cursory changes were just one part of a greater sense of wrongness here: the banner draped over the main door, the painted symbols on the walls. There was a pall over the empty street. It had transformed from a modest commercial area to a boarded-down bunker. Streetlights were smashed and debris littered the ground.

The little group halted about a block up, with the wide artery road, the Boulevard, to their left and the Galactic headquarters visible directly before them. They were close enough to spot figures in black and silver around the automatic doors facing the street, and, through the glass, a smattering of others inside. Angela squinted at the building for a few moments before screwing up her face and turning the other way.

Restless, Douglas hefted his bag on his shoulder, feeling the reassuring weight of his four Poké Balls inside. As Angela led them down a side street he picked up his pace to draw even with Skip.

"Where are we going?"

"Cutting across Harmon Park, I think," the older boy replied. "It's in back of the old mall, takes up about a block and a half."

"Right," Angela put in without turning around. Her strides were sharp and quick, and the others had to break into an awkward trot to keep up. "The mall takes up a good chunk of the block, but at least over there we've got natural cover to rely on."

Douglas did his best to keep their route in his head—when he reviewed it later, it seemed to him that they had crossed onto the next block over and headed toward the Galactic building again, though a series of back streets that ran among the row houses and businesses in the area. At one point their destination passed almost entirely out of view behind an empty office block. When they emerged from behind it they stood looking at the western edge of Harmon Park.

"Harmon Park;" Angela said, pointing east down the long stretch of green. If they turned left they would be going down the narrow street between the park and the mall. "It's not as if it backs right up to the building, but this is pretty obviously the back end of things. Traffic's lighter than light. Not so many goons around."

Tony peered down the road, but stepped back a bit when he spotted a Galactic grunt crossing the street. Skip shouldered up next to him, but Douglas hung back, strung tight with anxiety. None of the group was casual or relaxed, but beside them he felt as if he was the only one doing any proper worrying. He wondered, for a mad moment, if Commander Mars was here.

As he scanned the area, Tony saw that the wide windows that had been meant for displays had been covered with everything from tarps to stacks of boxes—anything to keep the public ignorant of what went on inside. He was about to turn to Angela, but his gaze was drawn to the service alley that marked the end of the mall and the beginning of a different property. Barely wider than a man, it was dark and appeared to be blocked by piles of trash bags. He stared into the gap.

Had he imagined it? His eyes began to water, and Skip poked him in the shoulder. "Tony? Tony, you okay?"

"Shh. You see that?"

"What, where? What?"

Tony ignored him, still focusing, and was rewarded with a clearer glimpse of something small and white emerging cautiously from the alley. "Yeah, right there, look!" This time the others saw what he had seen: a bedraggled Pachirisu looking out of the gap between the two buildings.

Angela grinned, or at least showed her teeth, and smacked a fist into her palm. "_There are no Pokémon in this city_. That little guy has to have escaped from Team Galactic. Come on."

She slipped around the corner, followed by Skip, Tony, and Douglas in single file. Casting her alert gaze up and down the street she led them up to the mouth of the alley. They stood flattened against the wall under the overhang of the neighboring building, hidden from both the mall windows and the eyes of the few Galactic grunts on the street.

They were significantly less organized as they clambered over trash bags and old boxes and into the dark, musty alley. Only a strip of sky was visible from inside, and the cobbles were uneven and dark with grime beneath their feet. It was clear, however, how Pachirisu had come to be there: spaced regularly along the alley were the low windows of a look-out basement, perhaps built before the neighboring building had crowded in on the space. The windows were filthy, and at least one was broken. Low sounds, huffs and squeals and barks, drifted from ground level into the alley.

Skip crouched down, not minding the dirt, to peer in. What he saw made him jump back in surprise. "Whoa. Um. You guys, I think we're in the right place. There's tons of Pokémon down there. Cages and cages in a big cellar kind of room."

"Seriously? Let me see." Tony squeezed in beside him and put his face to the hole. A second later he gave a whistle of awe. "How many you think are in there? A hundred? Two hundred? This is crazy. What do they want them all for?"

"See any people?" Angela cut in. "Team Galactic guys? The boss?"

Tony froze. He stood back up and shook his head. "No one. But I saw a Clefairy."

He had Angela and Skip's full attention without having to ask. "I don't know if it's our girl," he said slowly, putting up his hands. "But when I look at this I don't think it matters so much. These Pokémon are miserable. We have to get in there somehow."

Douglas cleared his throat diffidently, and bent down to examine the window. "I could fit through here. We could knock the rest of the glass out, and, and I could…have a look around."

He sounded far from convinced, and he knew it. Setting his shoulders, he made an effort to look more confident as he shrugged off his vest and wrapped it around one hand. He dug an empty Great Ball out of his bag, maximized it, and struck it against the ragged spurs of glass left in the window.

The Great Ball's surface chipped a little, but he was able to knock away the glass and clear the narrow window. It tinkled to the ground inside the building. After a time of silent work, he put away the Ball and slipped back into his vest, looking uncertainly at the others. "I mean, that's okay, right? I'm used to climbing and stuff, there are some places I've been through while I was traveling that are pretty tough…"

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, a wry look on his face. "It's fine, it's…it's better than fine. I'm just trying to work out what to say when Skip points out that he can fit through there too."

"'_Why sure, Skip, go right ahead_,'" Skip intoned. "'_I'm not your dad and anyway you can look after yourself. Have fun down there!_'"

Angela rolled her eyes. "Don't waste our time by starting an argument, guys. Skip, Douglas might need a hand getting around down there. You can go. Just…neither of you try to play hero, okay? If things get ugly, run for it."

Douglas winced at her words, but turned swiftly and crouched by the open window before he could think up any more reasons why he shouldn't. He sucked in his gut and stuck his feet through, relieved that the rough sill wasn't ripping his shirt. Then he eased himself forward on his hands, with Tony gripping his shoulders. One last wiggle and he was through. His feet hit the ground on the other side.

* * *

Everything starts to happen. Also, things get iffy: the climax of this story needed a lot of wrangling before I decided I was finally done. I wondered-how realistic do I need to get? How much longer should I put off the infiltration that was obviously going to happen? You know this story. Only, by no stretch of the imagination could Douglas fight his way through a building full of enemies. Logistics, how I hate you.


	9. Ballistics

_Author's Note:_ Whoa, has it really been this long? School started and kind of swallowed me; I'm sorry for the delay. At least we're near to the end now-this is one of my favorite chapters. Actual battling, Skip gets upset enough to swear (mildly...is he really a teenage boy?), and Jupiter takes the stage. One more chapter remains, so enjoy!

* * *

Douglas landed neatly, broken glass crunching beneath his feet, and immediately fell into a crouch behind the nearest row of cages. The room was nearly dark; what little light there was filtered in from the windows and the glass panels in the reinforced door on the other side. The imprisoned Pokémon began to turn curiously toward him, stirring from their corners.

He heard Skip drop to the floor behind him, but didn't turn around. Peering cautiously around the basement room, he saw the same thing everywhere he looked: cages upon cages of stolen Pokémon, large and overcrowded. There were even cardboard boxes punched with air holes, and a makeshift pen on the floor that housed a shivering, sluggish pile of Cascoon and Silcoon.

The more he saw, the more it galled him. He had known Team Galactic was bad, but this was inhumane. He saw Pokémon waste and discarded food, and the room stank of many bodies packed close together. In the cage by his shoulder, a flock of Starly flapped and squabbled amongst themselves, shoving one another up against the bars.

Skip grimaced as he crouched down beside Douglas. For once, he had little to say. "…It didn't look this bad from outside."

"I don't think very many things can look this bad," Douglas said dryly. Skip recognized the distant tone. He was upset, his face pale and his hands clenching and unclenching rhythmically. When he glanced around the room his gaze was the slightest bit wild.

"How the hell are we gonna work this?" Skip hissed. "It's not like we can shove them out the windows one by one. There are probably almost two hundred Pokémon here. And what about the boss and Triumph? I mean…now that I see this, I…I don't know what we came in here for. Against this, what can we…"

Douglas shook his head, suddenly heavy with exhaustion. "Yeah, I know. I know what you mean. But you're overthinking it. I think, right now, we have to do the job that's in front of us." He pointed at the Silcoon and Cascoon. "Those things can barely move on their own. Let's get them out the window and into the open, and they should be able to drag themselves to safety with their silk."

Skip opened his mouth to protest, and then realized that it was little more than a reflex. They were as good as lost, in this maze of trapped Pokémon. They didn't have the luxury of choice. He trudged over to the pen and helped Douglas heave the lid off. Both boys stood staring at the cocooned Pokémon, before Skip decided he had had enough—he bent down and scooped a Cascoon up in his arms. It hissed at him and he started, almost dropping it.

"…This…this thing is really weird." The cocoon was tightly woven and paper-dry, and the Pokémon didn't budge as he carried it to the window. With one foot he shoved an empty crate over and stepped up onto it. As Douglas picked up a Silcoon he heard Skip say faintly "…Hey, Tony, just grab it, okay? Douglas says it'll get away by itself."

There were four Silcoon and three Cascoon, and the boys soon had them all out in the alley, where Angela and Tony stared at them curiously. Two Silcoon had curled back into their wrappings, their eyes no longer visible. Two more had attached silk threads to the side of the neighboring building and dragged themselves up onto the roof, following some obscure instinct to hide in the trees. The Cascoon sat sluggishly on the cobbles, glaring around, apparently too weak or uncertain to make a break for it.

Douglas swung his arms, feeling his shoulders begin to tighten. The Pokémon were heavier than they looked. It was a relief, though, to know that they were out under the sun now instead of huddling helplessly in a basement. He took a breath. The smell had become less offensive after the first few minutes.

Looking around him, he realized with a sinking heart how many more prisoners remained. Skip poked his shoulder. "Hey. I just thought of something."

"Mmm?"

"Well…there are still Galactic guys in the street, really near to Angela and Tony. If they see a bunch of Pokémon come running out that alley, we're sunk."

Douglas' face fell. "I have a feeling I was trying not to notice that."

Drumming his fingers on his thigh, Skip cast his gaze aimlessly around the room. Its ceilings were low, and it had only the one door on the other side—

A glimpse of pink cut his frantic thoughts short. He squinted into the gloom.

Surer now of what he had seen, he squeezed between two stacks of cages, moving faster and faster as he crossed the room. At last he came to it: a cage holding three Clefairy. He put his hands against the bars. "Triumph? Hey, girl, you in there?"

At the sound of his voice, two of the Clefairy cringed. They were skittish and scruffy, their bright fur hanging in mats. The third Clefairy shoved its way toward the cage door. A smile broke out across Skip's face as he fumbled with the latch.

Triumph practically launched herself into his arms, dusting him with dirt and shed fur. Skip held her close, not minding the mess, and stroked her between the ears as she burrowed into his chest. "Aw, hey, I missed you too, girl. We all did. You're okay now, you're okay. It's okay. We're getting you out of here."

He was grinning from ear to ear as he lugged her back to the window. "Angela, Tony, heads up," he said as he heaved Triumph up and over the sill. "Found someone you might recognize."

Douglas couldn't make out what was being said outside, but the fond look on Skip's face as he craned up to the window told him everything he needed to know. He stood back a little ways, along the rows of cages, and listened to the murmur of warm voices from the alley. They formed a little place of their own there, half under the sun and half in darkness, wrapped up in a reunion that had nothing to do with Team Galactic or Twinleaf Town dreams. He wondered how long the shop had kept that Clefairy as a pet.

But the moment couldn't last. From the other side of the room there came a great metallic crash that silenced the low voices outside and in, and Douglas and Skip both whirled around.

The two remaining Clefairy in Triumph's cage had gathered their courage, and thrown themselves against the poorly locked door until the latch popped. Unbalanced, their cage tumbled to the ground as they scrambled out, and the stack beneath went with it. The noise was tremendous. After the last cage had hit the floor there was silence.

Then, the Pokémon in the neighboring cages began to cry out. It started with the shrill and frightened Starly, and spread to all manner of chittering bugs and squawking birds. The eerie caterwauling of a pair of Glameow sent shivers down Douglas' spine.

Angela and Tony's voices were louder now: "What was that, what's going on? You guys need to get out of there, _now_!"

Hopping down off the box ("_Skip, where are you going? Hurry up and get out!"_) Skip went to Douglas' side.

"…I did that, I think. Ahh, _shit_, what are we gonna do?"

The smaller boy slumped. "You're asking me?"

"…You're the one with the Pokémon."

Douglas opened his mouth soundlessly and made a wild, frustrated gesture. Skip snatched his flailing hand and shoved it aside, and he snapped his mouth shut. Footsteps echoed in the halls, getting louder by the second. Shouts of alarm—"Someone's in the storage"—"Commander!"—"Hurry it up, will you?"—filtered down to them.

Douglas slung his bag off his shoulder. After a moment's furious rummaging he pressed something smooth and hard into Skip's hand, and pulled him in close. As he spoke rapidly, Skip's eyes widened and he took a step back. "And here I used to think you were a pretty normal guy."

With a wry snort, Douglas slung his bag back over his shoulder. His hands were shaking. "Whoops, sorry. False advertising. I'm actually a little nuts—trust me!" He turned on his heel and headed straight for the door.

The sound of the door slamming shut brought the Galactic grunts up short as they rounded the corner. Douglas was standing there in the middle of the hallway, looking as though he was about to be sick. As he stared wide-eyed at them, the group parted and a tall, dark-haired woman strode to the front. She moved like water, her steps nearly silent.

He shuffled forward, taking in her custom uniform. It was different from the one Mars had worn, but the workmanship was the same—and so was the privilege it implied. She was another of the same kind. She watched him lazily.

"Do you know who I am?"

Mouth dry, he shook his head.

"Lucky you. _So_ many people hear about me, you know…but not all of them get to meet me in person. I am Commander Jupiter. It's a pleasure."

"Likewise," Douglas mumbled, some long-ago scrap of etiquette bubbling up from his panicked mind. "Oh. Um." He reached into his bag. "I, I..."

"What possessed you to come in here, you stupid child? You've doomed yourself, you know."

Douglas' fingers skidded over the jumble of supplies in his bag. He sucked in a deep breath. "I challenge you."

Skip's hand slipped on the latch of the nearest cage, and he swore under his breath as he worked again to slide it open. He jumped to the side as five Shinx piled out onto the floor, mewling and sparking in surprise. They added to the muddle of Pokémon he had already managed to free: a few Bidoof, a Girafarig, a pack of nearly twenty Budew, and the cage full of Starly that he had seen Douglas staring at with pity. Heart pounding, he wondered how much time he had.

Jupiter eyed Douglas as one would a strange new Pokémon. A smirk twitched the corners of her mouth. "Oh, I see. You're a _traditionalist_." She spat the last word like a curse, but the mocking look on her face never faltered. "Why did you leave home, little boy? Are you going to collect some nice shiny badges and be a Pokémon master?"

Reaching into his bag, Douglas weighed his choices. Jupiter kept talking. "That's a story for children, I hope you know. Real life is perhaps slightly less pretty, slightly less _neat_…but you've caught me in an accommodating mood.

If some good old one-on-one combat is what you want, well…I accept your challenge."

She reached to her belt and unclipped a Poké Ball. "I assume you have some stakes in mind."

Lifting his head, Douglas made an effort to project his voice. "If you lose, leave Eterna City. You've been here too long already."

Jupiter's smirk widened into a full-out grin. "You have the oddest sense of humor. If you lose, I want all the Pokémon you have with you. Don't expect to see them again."

"D—done." _It doesn't matter_, he told himself. _The stakes aren't the point_.

Almost before he had finished talking, Jupiter released her first Pokémon. He winced at the sudden light, and then again at the earsplitting shriek of her Golbat. It soared high, mouth gaping, and he made his choice.

Staravia fluttered uncertainly on the still air, looking to him for orders. Too soon, though, Golbat caught its trainer's murmured command and opened its mouth. Its shrill voice made his ears ring, and Staravia staggered in the air, suddenly clumsy. Douglas had never felt more helpless than he did then: his Pokémon a leaf tossed on the storm, and him with his feet planted on the ground.

"Staravia! Get up to the ceiling and use Wing Attack!"

She obeyed as best she could, but Golbat's quick backwing kept it from taking the brunt of the blow. Snapping at its small feet, she missed and again fell victim to Supersonic. Lagging in the chase, she swerved wildly as Golbat led her on a merry dance along the ceiling.

Douglas brought a hand to his belt. Staravia wouldn't last long, she was addled by Supersonic and barely able to control herself. Should he switch now or push her to her limit to give Skip more time?

"Watch out!" he called as Golbat made another lunge. Staravia, her survival instincts still intact, folded her wings and dropped to evade its Bite.

Just a little bit longer, then. He closed a hand over his next Poke Ball. "Staravia, try another Wing Attack."

Aiming for Golbat, she wobbled dangerously as she closed in, and Douglas bit his lip. Golbat feinted left and Staravia followed. It swerved right at the last second, screeching mockingly—and she did too, unable to control her line of flight any longer. The two slammed into the wall and Golbat howled.

Jupiter tossed her head. "Golbat, finish it!"

Her Pokémon sank its long fangs into Staravia's shoulder as she struggled to disentangle herself. She gave one shuddering cry and dropped in a graceless arc. Golbat flapped wildly to stay in the air.

Douglas's shout of panic mirrored his Pokémon's own as he dashed forward to catch her. She tumbled into his arms, shedding feathers, and Jupiter raised a perfect brow. "You're really not cut out for this, are you?"

He didn't bother to respond, instead switching Pokemon with barely a glance. He knew where he was going from here.

In the dark room, Skip listened to the sounds of battle as he raced to open cage after cage. His circuit had brought him down to the end of the room and back, and he estimated that about half the Pokémon were out. Some of the cages needed careful unlocking, while others just needed lids heaved off or tape torn away. The room was growing hotter and more chaotic.

Luxio took Staravia's place on the battlefield. She sat down and promptly began to wash herself. "Get down!" Douglas shouted, his voice mingling with Jupiter's cry of "Wing Attack!"

Flattening her belly to the floor, Luxio just managed to evade the broad sweep of her opponent's wings. She came up snarling, spitting sparks, and Douglas managed an inward grin. Now she was angry.

"Luxio, go for it—Spark!"

At his command, the electricity crackling along her hackles intensified. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as she lunged for Golbat— and drew up short as it took to the air.

"Up, take it up! Just like we practiced!" Douglas was far beyond being shy about shouting now. His fists were clenched and his heartbeat was loud in his ears, and he saw nothing but the two Pokémon dueling it out. Luxio bounded back as Golbat swooped for her again, and Douglas watched with pride as she executed the move he had had her practice with tossed balls and toys.

At the low point of Golbat's swoop she launched herself vertically into the air and came down hard. Her opponent screeched in pain, barely able to twist out from under the charged body blow. When it took to the air again it was in obvious difficulty, with one wing dragging along the floor and forcing it to fly in drunken circles.

As Jupiter brought a thoughtful hand to her belt, Douglas felt a flash of triumph. It was premature, he knew, but she only appeared to have one more Pokémon. All he could hope for now was that Skip would finish his work soon. He put a hand out to Luxio, and echoed Jupiter's earlier command. "Finish it."


	10. Breakout Hit

_Author's Note:_ I'm really sorry to all of you who've been following this story-I'm right in the middle of the college admissions mess now and sometimes it feels like I'll never see the light of day. So off I went, leaving you on a cliffhanger, but this here is _the very last chapter_. That's right, it's over. This is one heck of a personal milestone for me, and I'm endlessly grateful to those of you who've faved, following, and left reviews. Enjoy!

* * *

"Skip, what's going on in there?" Angela hissed through the broken window. Startled, Skip looked up to the slice of daylight overhead. "What's all that noise, what're you doing?"

He jogged over to the window, sidestepping a confused Kricketune. "Calm down just a sec. Douglas has this plan, see. He's buying me some time right now…"

An incredulous grin spread over Angela's face as Skip filled her in on their next moves. "That kid came up with this? Well, it's always the quiet ones, isn't it."

"…Yup. Seems like it. So you know what you guys need to do, right? When I say, get to the front door and make sure it stays open. Then, just, um, try not to get hurt."

"Will do." Angela leaned over as far as she could to meet Skip's eyes. "And you. Be careful in there."

* * *

Luxio gave a satisfied rumble as she went for Golbat again. "Spark again, you can take it in one hit," Douglas told her. Golbat hissed weakly, trying to maneuver out of the way, but Luxio was on it in just a few strides. She lowered her head and surged into her opponent, ears laid back. Golbat dropped like a rock.

Jupiter recalled it without ceremony. "You really have put _effort_ into this, haven't you? All this training, all these dreams. You're _committed_. It's a little nauseating, to be honest." Douglas knew this time to turn away from the flash of red light. "Skuntank, it's your turn." The Commander seemed as cool as ever, but Skuntank was her last Pokémon. Douglas watched her, noted the tightening at the corners of her mouth as she prepared to give her next command. She was shaken.

Skuntank was thick-limbed and sturdy. It set its feet apart and snarled and Luxio, who glared haughtily back. Douglas looked on nervously. He had shown his hand when it came to Luxio—Spark was her best move. He judged that he'd need more than that to take down this newest foe.

"Luxio, use Tackle," he called, looking to Jupiter to gauge her reaction. She was still smirking, and as Luxio moved toward Skuntank he had a terrible sense of foreboding. He leaned forward, unconsciously mimicking his Pokémon's forward motion.

"Skuntank, use Poison Gas," Jupiter's voice was flat, but there was a smile dancing in her eyes.

"Luxio, no, get out of there!" Douglas' warning came too late, and he cursed himself as the two collided in the middle of a roiling purple cloud. They went down kicking and snapping, and he saw that Skuntank's greater weight would give Luxio no way to escape.

"Luxio, Spark!" He saw something flicker in the cloud, and heard Skuntank's deep grunt of pain. Luxio emerged from the gas a moment later, missing a clump of fur from her shoulder. Her step was steady, but as a little of the gas drifted back to Douglas, he gagged. He knew it wouldn't be long before she went down. Again, he was faced with a choice.

Leaving her in battle would expose her to the poison, and poison was a tricky thing. He thought back to his lessons at home—Rowan's grave voice informing him that airborne poisons irritated the soft tissue of the eyes, nose, and mouth, while liquid venoms sapped a Pokémon's strength and reduced it to a fainting, puking shadow of its former self.

"A little longer, Luxio. Try to stay away from that gas cloud, he can't hide in there forever."

"Skuntank is female, actually," Jupiter noted dryly. Douglas ignored her, and focused on the haze in the center of the hall.

When Skuntank emerged it was on Jupiter's command—"Night Slash!" Moving with a speed belied by her large size, she dove for Luxio with claws extended. Luxio rolled to dodge. She escaped the worst of it, but couldn't find her feet before the follow-up blow glanced across her shoulders.

She regained her footing quickly, trying not to limp. Douglas saw with a sinking heart that she was blinking furiously, and kept jerking one paw to her face and then down again. It was an irritated, mechanical motion meant to clear her streaming eyes and nose. He didn't know if Skuntank's poison was strong enough to have lasting effects, but the message was clear: Luxio wouldn't last much longer.

"Luxio, use Spark!" He gave the command with a hitch in his voice. She seemed to understand his misgivings, but growled gamely and leapt for Skuntank as she was gearing up for another Night Slash.

Douglas had barely expected the attack to connect, but it did. Skuntank, already unbalanced, fell to the floor with her limbs twitching spasmodically. Luxio fell alongside her, dragging a paw across her eyes. "Luxio! Bite!" It was a last-ditch move; she was failing. As she scrabbled to find purchase in Skuntank's thick fur Douglas realized she could barely see.

He reached into his bag. He had one Pokémon left. "Luxio, return. Jonesy, I'm counting on you now."

Jonesy looked back at Douglas as he stepped out to his opponent, and the trainer felt a pang of distress as he looked back. Jonesy was so trusting, all of them were. Had they come out to battle thinking that Douglas intended them to win?

He risked a sidelong glance at the door to the storage room. They were down to the wire. Skip had to use what remained of his time wisely—Douglas wondered if Skip knew what he was risking to buy him that time.

"Skuntank, another Night Slash!" Jupiter sounded more confident now. "This is your last Pokémon, isn't it? I can see it in your face. There's something else I'm waiting to see, though."

Skuntank picked herself up, shaking her head as if to rid herself of buzz of Luxio's electricity, and lumbered forward. Jupiter kept talking.

"I'm waiting for the moment when you realize, really realize, that _you can't do it_," she told him with a kind of vicious glee. "It'll come to you, I know. You've tried oh so hard, and you were going to win your way to the top, to be a master. And then you ran up against a wall…"

Douglas interrupted. "Jonesy, Mach Punch!" He felt safe enough in this choice; Jonesy was fast without sacrificing too much muscle. His Monferno darted forward, and he crouched slightly as if ready to leap himself.

Mach Punch connected solidly, but a moment later Jonesy was flung back by Skuntank's heavy paw. He gathered himself for a neat landing, somersaulting back to face the enemy again. Breath coming hard and fast, Douglas scanned the hall as he thought on his next command.

* * *

Skip dodged a swinging tail as something he couldn't identify dashed past him and onto a stack of crates. He stooped to unlatch the last bank of cages, and when he straightened up, a horde of Bidoof and Buizel flowed around his ankles. He cast his gaze down the row, looking for the next locked cage. There were none.

A sudden lightness filled him. He felt he had spent an eternity opening cages, all the while dodging rocks and vines and flying feathers as the erstwhile captives made it clear that they weren't terribly thankful for the favor. He took a deep breath, not really noticing the smell. _Showtime._

He trotted to the window and signaled his co-workers, who scrambled out of the alley and headed towards the front of the mall. Skip reached into his pocket and felt for the object Douglas had shoved into his hands.

Misdreavus' Poké Ball winked at him in the shaft of light from the window. Pointing it away from his chest, he pressed the button on the front. The Ball doubled in size. He pressed the button again, and red light flooded his vision.

When it cleared a second later, Misdreavus nudged his cheek. She was crooning at him in a voice that sent icy shivers down his spine despite the heat of the day. It provoked something less than human in the back of his brain, some animal reflex that urged him to _get away, now_. The Pokemon around him, too, save for some of the bugs, were drawing back warily.

"Um, hey there. Look, I need your help. And Douglas does too, and all these Pokémon. I know I'm not your trainer…but I really only have to ask you to do this one thing."

Misdreavus eyed him questioningly.

"I need you to be scary; really, really scary. I know that's your thing, right? Well, this is the chance of a lifetime. A whole room full of Pokémon just waiting for you to, ah, freak them out. It's for their own good, trust me."

Swooping in close, Misdreavus circled his head, humming softly. She shot away abruptly, into the rafters where only the glow of her eyes was visible. As Skip watched, that glow intensified. The few bird Pokémon that had been in the rafters came diving out just seconds later, flapping wildly. Their eyes were wide and unfocused, their movements clumsy, but they all moved in the same direction: away from Misdreavus.

Skip felt his stomach turn over, and he whirled around, suddenly certain that there was something behind him. There wasn't. His pulse only sped up, though, and he could feel himself trembling. He risked a glance toward the ceiling. Was this how it worked?

Looking made it worse. His heart was in his mouth, and for the first time since the attack on the shop he felt the beginnings of pure terror again. There was a crawling sensation on his skin, and the dark of the room was changing rapidly from the dull shadows of afternoon to the blackness of pure night.

All around him, the Pokémon were panicking. Howls and moans rose from every corner of the room and there was a pattering of feet and a whipping of wings as they surged, as one beast, towards the door. Through the fog of his panic Skip ran too, reaching for the handle.

Douglas was not at all prepared for the cry of "Douglas, _look out_!" He recognized Skip's voice, though, and dove to one side of the hall without even looking to see where it had come from. He recalled Jonesy from where he was grappling with Skuntank, and flattened himself against the wall.

The ground shook. Out of the storage room door poured a teeming herd of panicked Pokémon, feet and hooves and claws pounding in a mindless rhythm. It came up through the soles of his feet and throbbed in his chest, until he imagined that his heartbeat was the same. They streamed past his face and he felt, as if from very far off, a heavy paw treading on his toes. An outstretched wing clipped his forehead.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jupiter reeling back in shock. She recalled her Skuntank and simply stood there for the first few moments, staring.

* * *

On the next floor up, Rad Rickshaw stood in the center of a storage closet and listened carefully. The floor was definitely vibrating. From outside he could hear shouts of alarm—"What's going on down there?"—"They're running for it!"—"Where's the Commander, what do we _do_—"

He went to the door and peered out the little window. The Team Galactic members that he could see were clustered by the far stairs, watching something down below. A dull roar of many voices filtered up from the lower halls.

Tugging experimentally at the door handle, Rickshaw heard a wooden clatter. Broom through the handles? He wasn't being held by expert kidnappers, then. The shop owner set his jaw and angled the point of his shoulder towards the door. This was going to hurt a bit.

* * *

Skip came pelting after the last few Pokémon, and Misdreavus drifted blissfully behind him. With her came a chilly wave of fear that slid over Douglas and dug deep into his gut, making him clench his fists so hard he left reddened imprints in his palms.

The stampede passed on. Skip skidded to a halt beside Douglas but Misdreavus kept flying, spurring them further down the hall. With difficulty, Douglas peeled himself off the wall and tottered out to the center, Skip at his side. With Misdreavus' departure, the terror she had induced was fading. He risked a glance at Jupiter.

The Galactic Commander stood there still, at the other end of the hall where she had first dug in for their battle—five, ten minutes ago? That time had passed in a sick and spinning blur for Douglas, as he counted down the seconds until he could stop this posturing and run.

Jupiter's men had vanished, scared off by the unexpected horror of Misdreavus' presence. She was alone; she had had the presence of mind to recall her Skuntank when the stampede thundered on through. That alone had probably saved the Pokémon's life. The stampede had been mindless, feeding on the terror of a few to unite the whole group in their dash for the exit. It would not have stopped for one body in its way.

"…Oh, you clever boys," Jupiter hissed at them. Her posture was as straight as ever, but her shoulders were shaking—with shock or rage, Douglas couldn't tell. "Clever, clever, little children. I'll remember this; I'll remember your face." She met Douglas' eyes. "Letting me run my mouth off while you schemed and stalled. It's almost _poetic_."

Skip slung an arm around Douglas's shoulders, looking nervously at the Commander. "Hey, man. Let's get out of here."

They turned down the hall, following the trail of hoof and paw prints and bird droppings. Jupiter made no move to stop them. But as they neared the end of the hall she spoke again, and Douglas couldn't stop the convulsive shudder that shook him.

"You weren't who I thought you were. I'll admit it."

The boys kept walking.

"But you're going to wish you were, because it's easy to be a child. These are grown-up games you're playing now, and they don't just _end_. Oh, no. They begin with a few people and they go on and on as legends. Team Galactic is bigger than this—what do you think you've won?"

"I'll thank you not to talk like that to my employee."

Skip whirled around so quickly his neck hurt, and Douglas stumbled beside him. "Boss!"

Rad Rickshaw gave a tired wave. "Skip. You and your friend been making a mess?"

"What—how did you—"

Giving the livid Jupiter a wide berth, Rickshaw came up the hall and laid his hand on Skip's shoulder. "Turns out the guards around here kind of lose focus when the floor starts to shake and all sorts of noises come up from below. What exactly were you kids doing?"

Skip took him by the sleeve, and they began following the trail once again. "Um, why don't I tell you when we get outside?"

* * *

The next day dawned just like so many others that had come before it: sunny and blue-skied; careless and warm. Tony's bike rattled along Centennial Drive, and he clawed a few strands of hair out of his eyes as he twisted to look back down the road.

Nearly thirty Pokémon were dashing along after him—Buizel and Pachirisu and Bidoof and a few Luxray. He shifted his grip on his handles and rattled the bag of kibble Douglas had lent him. At the sound, the pack sped up. Angela, on the far end of the group, chivvied the stragglers along, leaning over her crossbar with a broom.

"Hey, come on! You know you want it!" He rounded the corner into Eon Square and hit the brakes. The runners streamed past him, straight into the makeshift pen set up by a handful of other volunteers. As the gates snapped shut, he slid off his bike and exchanged a high-five with Angela.

"I think we got it down. That was way better than last time."

"Yeah," she agreed. "It's nice that you've finally learned to look where you're going."

There were people circling around the teeming pen, reaching over, dangling favorite toys and treats, calling out nicknames and searching for their Pokémon. Voices rose, the bright, happy tones of relief and reunion. Angela and Tony looked on proudly. Up in Perennial Plaza Skip was part of a similar operation, and Douglas, though bikeless, had tagged along to help him set up pens. Word had traveled fast. The streets were full. It was a joyful kind of chaos.

The old mall in front of Harmon Park was silent. On the uppermost floor Commander Jupiter stood looking out over the city, barely seeing it. Her gaze was distant. She put a hand to her earpiece.

"…No, sir, I—I apologize. There was very little I could do. We don't own this city anymore."

The voice on the other end was not raised in anger, but she winced all the same. "I understand, Master Cyrus. It won't happen again. If that boy interferes…"

She was interrupted, and stared out to the horizon with her mouth set in a pale line. "Mars is…she's done in the Valley already? She's moved all the equipment out? Well, then, of course…I'll get in touch with Saturn right away."

The line closed abruptly, and she plucked the earpiece out and put it in her pocket. Turning neatly on her heel, she strode out the door, gesturing for the subordinate standing at attention to follow her. "Notify them down below," she snapped, not looking at him. "We've received orders. We're leaving."

"Is it—is it the three lakes next, Commander?" He ventured. She swung her head around to stare at him, and he cringed.

"Assume that whatever it is, it's advised by the wisdom of Master Cyrus," she shot back. "Which means _you don't ask questions_."

"Understood, Commander."

* * *

"Any reason in particular you gotta leave so soon?" Skip leaned in the doorway of the shop and wagged a finger at Douglas. "I mean, we just gave you this cool bike. And now you're ditching on us? Come on."

Douglas reddened. "Sorry! I, ah…"

"Nah, don't worry. I was just messing with you," Skip shrugged. "People are all trying to hunt down their magic savior. The media will eat you alive if you let them get you. Better to get out while you can. Plus, you trainers are earth-walking types anyway." He smiled at Douglas, but there was something unreadable in his eyes.

Letting out a long breath, Douglas patted the seat of his new red bike. "Thanks. For getting it, I mean. And there's one other thing. I, ah, I have to go back to Valley Windworks. I have to see if they're still there."

Skip straightened up. The look on his face told Douglas that this was what he had been waiting to hear. "And if they are?"

"Well." Douglas looked uncertain, but he cracked a small smile. "If they're still there, I guess I'll do the job that's in front of me. I think there's no way to know until I get there." The story he'd been listening to all his life—he still wasn't sure if it was the right one or not. It had followed him; out of his childhood, his mother's lap, the big book of legends that Twinleaf Town loved. The only thing he was certain of was that the story wasn't done with him yet.

Rickshaw, Angela, Tony and Skip followed Douglas out onto the Boulevard. He swung his bike around to the east, and stood looking down the road and on. Skip came up behind him and dropped a hand onto his shoulder.

"Don't be a stranger," he said. "Any time you want to come and visit…" His hand was warm.

Douglas nodded, feeling light. "Any time I feel like coming around."

THE END

* * *

Well, not in the strictest sense. I plan to add a few extras that didn't make it into the story, as well as a preview of the sequel, _Agents of Change_. Keep an eye out!


	11. extras

_Stuff that might have been_

(Skip and family, shortly after Douglas leaves)

Skip wandered barefoot through his empty house, avoiding almost without thinking the spots where old floorboards buckled and creaked. He could find no trace of Douglas having been here. Not a muddy footprint or a dish out of place—it set him on edge. The other boy had skidded into his life with the suddenness of a summer storm; Skip _knew_ he had been real.

But it didn't feel like it. Eterna City had been captured and now it was saved and how, _how_ was he supposed to remember Douglas if there was nothing left? The last week had been a strange and timeless cutout, separated from the rest of his life by unseen hands.

A muffled thump from outside caught his attention, and paranoia reared its head. He had to remind himself that Team Galactic was gone now; he had seen them running, before he could go to the door. He padded up to peek out through the curtains. His parents were on the stoop.

"Skip, honey, we're back!" his mother said as she came in. "We missed you!"

"Hey," he managed to get out before a suitcase swung in through the door. He backed into the living room, made to sit down, then remembered himself and got up again. Still barefoot, he went out into the street.

"Hey, Dad."

"Skip, hey. Been all right?"

"Oh, yeah. Fine. Let me get that."

His mother laughed as she turned to watch him. He stood looking at her for a moment, in her blue sun dress, framed by the door of their house. Then he hurried, with a bag in each hand, and moved up the steps.

"Hey, tough guy," his mother patted his shoulder. "It's nice to be back."

Later, his parents listened with wide eyes as June and Scott told them about the invasion. Their talk stilled the clink of cutlery, and the dining room was quiet. Only Skip kept eating.

Skip's father looked sharply at him every time he pitched in with fact, detail, or opinion. As if he couldn't believe that his only son had been present though all of this.

"You didn't get mixed up in anything, Skip? You didn't get hurt?"

His mother watched him with restless eyes. His father leaned slowly over the table.

"No way," he said slowly, relishing the sound of the words. "I stayed miles away from all that trouble." He was signing something away as he spoke, and he knew it. The ransacked shop, the infiltration, the stampede—and Douglas.

All locked away: it was a satisfying feeling, to be sitting on a truth that big.

"You know me," he said to his family. "I was careful."

His aunt and uncle nodded. His mother sighed. "Well," she said, "I'm just glad it's all over."

* * *

(Tony and Angela's nonexistent romantic subplot)

Tony busied himself in the kitchen, and counted down the minutes. He wanted out, to the city suddenly new and clean as if by recent rains. He thought again of Douglas astride his bike on the long road out of town. The kid had never said where he was going. He had only raised a hand, dark against the clear sky, and turned and gone.

He still wasn't quite sure what had happened back at the abandoned mall. Skip had described it to him, of course, but he had been breathless and bounding and tripping over his own words. All Tony knew for certain was that the stampede had come and he had never wanted to run away as badly as he had then—with the many howling voices raised high, plumes and feathers and fire and the drumbeat of many feet beneath him.

Instead, he had reached for Angela's hand.

The stove beeped, and he turned back to it. Douglas receded to the back of his mind as he checked the temperature and eased the pan in. Those things were past, and if he wasn't careful the lasagna might burn.

He spared a glance out the window. Summer was coming to an end. But it didn't much matter. Other things would come to fill its place.

At dusk, the doorbell rang. He leapt up from his seat and practically ran to the door.

"Angela, come on in." He grinned, and decided to risk a compliment. "Nice scarf."

She smiled at him, for once a mild and contented smile. "Smells good in here."

"Absolutely. I know my stuff."

"I wouldn't be here otherwise." Her smile widened into a smirk and she kicked her shoes off. He led her into the little living room, and they settled side by side on the couch overlooking the street.

Angela's eyes fixed on the row of sapling trees in cutouts on the sidewalk. She remembered the trees snapped and ash-blackened. Slashed and trampled. They had lain still on the pavement in the dead heat.

Tony dropped his head onto her shoulder. "Summer's almost over." His voice vibrated in the crook of her neck.

She eased her elbow up onto the back of the couch and let her hand come to rest on his shoulder. "I'm looking forward to the fall."

* * *

(prologue:_ Agents of Change_)

_There is a room filled wall to wall with men and women in uniform—perhaps two hundred of them. They stand in ragged rows, faces turned upwards to the podium at the front. They are waiting._

_At the foot of the podium are two women and a man. And behind it: a broad figure with his face half in shadow. His hands are clasped behind his back, and he stands like a king._

"_Why do we fight?" He does not need to should to command the attention of the room. His voice is rich with conviction._

_A shudder runs through the crowd. Then, many voices rise as one: "We fight because this world is ill!"_

"_And why is this world ill?"_

"_This world is ill because man is weak!" The chorus is louder now._

"_What do the dying world and the weak man need?" the man demands, his own voice rising. He is rigid, a pillar at the eye of the storm as his people stamp their feet and cry out beneath him._

"_A new world order!" they chant. He spreads his arms._

"_And who will bring the new world order?"_

_The voices are frenzied now; the room overflows with thunder. "Team Galactic! Team Galactic! Team Galactic!"_

_Far in the west of the region, something stirs. On an island in the middle of a lake it raises its head. Ripples spread outward across the water. It has been dreaming for many years now, pleasant dreams, and it does not yet know why it has woken._


End file.
